


Selected Poems

by Ally147



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Everlark Birthday Drabbles, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hospital Setting, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn-ish, brief mentions of canon-typical abuse, everlark, school setting, vingette-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 06:09:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13358148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ally147/pseuds/Ally147
Summary: Friends to Lovers, spanning twenty years.





	Selected Poems

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally written about a year ago for the Everlark Birthday Drabbles blog on Tumblr (I don't recall for who, sorry!). Since it's original posting, this story has undergone significant edits, and has had two additional scenes written in. (Yes, I'm procrastinating hard on my other stories...)
> 
> This story was *somewhat* inspired by the Gaslight Anthem song of the same name, but it's definitely not a songfic. I just love the line quoted at the beginning of the story.
> 
> (For those curious, the story doesn't really earn it's E rating until the end, and even then, my smut's pretty tame, so... sorry, maybe?)

_“And I was crazy like the moon for you_

_And head over my heels for you_

_And never would I change or compromise”_

**‘Selected Poems’ – The Gaslight Anthem**

 

* * *

 

 

_Age 5_

 

Peeta’s putting the finishing touches on a crayon drawing of a dandelion when his life changes forever.

 

It’s the middle of the school year, so they don’t get many new kids starting. Peeta’s not the only one who’s watching on, curious — _enthralled_.

 

The new girl doesn’t even reach her dad’s waist, she’s so little. Her hair hangs down her back in two glossy black braids, red plaid dress coming down past her knees. She looks out over the classroom with her wide, grey eyes and clutches her daddy’s hand while he talks to Mr. Cinna.

 

She’s the prettiest girl _ever_.

 

When he’s done talking, her daddy gets down on one knee in front of her, smiling as he brushes back a wispy piece of black fringe. He murmurs words to her that Peeta can’t hear, but she nods, takes in every word her daddy says with a sort of… oldness that Peeta doesn’t quite understand, but admires anyway.

 

Peeta’s eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open as he watches her wind her way through the maze of seats to a free one two rows ahead of him and just to the left. She pulls books and a pencil case from her thin bag, decorated with patterns of the moon and stars. Peeta twitches with the urge to pack up his own things, shove them back into his bag and take the free seat to the girl’s side.

 

But a slew of other kids come in, filling in the leftover seats just before the morning bell goes off. Peeta frowns and slumps back in his seat. Tomorrow, he vows. Tomorrow he’ll sit beside her, if she allows it.

 

He takes a fresh piece of paper and instead draws out the lines of her pretty braid. He furrows his brow as he works; his black pencil won’t be anywhere near dark enough for the inky-black of her hair. Maybe the paints they’ll get to use later will be dark and shiny enough. He stows the drawing away in his desk for later, just as Mr. Cinna sets a worksheet down in front of him.

 

“All right, everyone,” Mr. Cinna says. “Before we get started, we have a new student starting with us today.” He gestures to the pretty new girl, who squirms in her seat. He knows what it’s like; he transferred in the first two weeks of the school year and everyone stared at him, too, like he was a bug in a container.

 

“Everyone say hello to Katniss.”

 

 _Katniss._ He’s never met anyone with that name. Not like how he knows four different Ryan’s, and they all spell their names differently, too.

 

“Katniss and her family moved here just last week from the Capitol.”

 

Peeta perks, sitting up straighter in his seat. His family came from the Capitol, too!

 

“I hope everyone will make her feel welcome.” Mr. Cinna smiles and turns back to the blackboard, taking a screechy, streaky length of chalk in his fingers. “Now, if everyone will look forward, we can carry on with yesterday’s maths problems.”

 

A groan moves through the room while Mr. Cinna scratches the sums onto the board. From working in the bakery with his daddy, measuring ingredients and calculating cooking times, and even helping with The Books sometimes when his daddy lets him, Peeta’s pretty good with numbers.

 

Peeta holds his pencil in a tight grip and moves through his worksheet, casting quick, glances at Katniss ahead of him. She grips a pencil with a Mickey Mouse topper, moving it so fast over the paper he wonders if maybe she’s just scribbling the problems out. Maybe she’s not very good at maths? Maybe she’d let him teach her the trick his daddy showed him with the greater-than and less-than signs, how you just imagine them as alligator mouths that think the bigger number is the most delicious.

 

“Peeta,” Mr. Cinna calls out in his gentle voice. “Eyes on your own paper, please.”

 

Peeta’s cheeks flush. “Yes, sir,” he mumbles, turning his attention back to his work.

 

His work is long complete, and covered in doodles of braids, when Mr. Cinna asks them all to put their papers away in their desks; they’ll go over the answers in the afternoon. But there’s still another hour before they break for lunch, and they’ve already done so much work today.

 

His question is answered when Mr. Cinna sits at the keyboard in the corner of the room. He leads the class through breathing exercises and scales before asking, “Does anyone know _The Valley Song_?”

 

The song is a local one, sung at the beginning of the Harvest Festival each year to celebrate the valley in which the town of Panem sits. Peeta never learned the words, but he does like the melody. Sometimes his daddy hums it under his breath while he bakes.

 

After a long time of no one volunteering, Katniss puts her hand up, and it shakes in the air. “I do,” she mumbles.

 

Mr. Cinna gives her a kind smile. “Would you like to sing it for us, Katniss?”

 

Katniss nods, stands up, and takes a deep breath.

 

Katniss’ voice is high and clear and sweet alongside Mr. Cinna’s playing. The other kids in his class fall silent and Peeta swears the birds outside do, too. The red-haired lady who sang it at last year’s festival didn’t sound half as nice. Peeta closes his eyes and lets the pretty song fill him up.

 

When it ends, he’s empty again. He wants to chase it but doesn’t know where it went.

 

“Thank you, Katniss,” Mr. Cinna says, his voice soft and awed as Katniss sits back down. “That was… absolutely beautiful.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Katniss says, her voice quiet and shy.

 

At lunchtime, Peeta skips along to the open field at the back of the school where the rest of the kids in his class sit. He’s about to sit with Delly and Thom, his best friends and neighbours on each side of his house, when he spies the shine of two black braids glinting a pretty red colour in the sunshine. She’s off on her own in the far corner, away from the other children. He doesn’t understand why; everyone seemed to like her after her singing. But maybe she’s hiding; he knows everyone can be a bit much with all their questions.

 

Peeta darts his gaze between Delly and Thom sitting in the shade by the swing set and Katniss in the far corner, sitting with no one. He smiles to himself and changes course to skip along to Katniss’ little corner. She closes her lunchbox and watches him as he comes closer — he’s always so loud, even when he tries to tip-toe — but she isn’t smiling yet.

 

“Hello,” he says, all out of breath as he pulls himself to a stop. He’s sure he’s gone all red again, too, like he does when he plays too rough with his brothers after school.

 

“Hi,” she replies, going right back to her lunchbox.

 

“I’m Peeta,” he tells as he drops to the ground beside her.

 

She glances at him from under her eyelashes. “I’m Katniss.”

 

“That’s a pretty name,” he says, beaming.

 

“Peeta’s nice, too,” she offers. She takes a little parcel of apple slices out of her lunchbox and sits them on one of her crossed knees.

 

“Thank you! Wanna share a cheese bun?” Peeta slips the bag from his lunchbox, the paper clear in spots from all the grease. “I got to bring lots today. I helped make them.”

 

Katniss stares at the bag. “You did?”

 

“Uh-huh.” Peeta takes a bun and places it next to her apple slices. “My daddy has a bakery. He lets me help all the time.”

 

She looks down at her tiny lunch and frowns. “I don’t have anything to trade you, though.”

 

“That’s okay. I don’t want anything. I just want to share with you.” He pushes it closer and smiles. “It’s okay.”

 

Then she smiles, and that full feeling from when she was singing is back. She picks the bun up and takes a big bite. She chews and swallows, and her smile gets even bigger.

 

She giggles and looks at him, showing a gap between her front teeth just like his. “That was yummy! I like you, Peeta. You’re nice.”

 

He beams back. “I like you, too, Katniss. Would you like to be friends?”

 

She looks surprised, but happy. “I’d like to be your friend, Peeta.”

 

Peeta’s grins so wide, his cheeks sting. “Here, would you like this, too?” He pulls out a folded piece of paper from his pocket, his drawing of a dandelion from this morning. “I think you’d like it.”

 

She unfolds it, her eyes going all… sparkly. She traces the petals and the stem with great care. “I do like it. You’re really good at drawing!”

 

He blushes. “Thank you.”

  
“Maybe I can I sit next to you tomorrow?”

 

He reaches out and takes her hand, because it seems like the right thing to do, and likes the look of her darker skin with his lighter. It looks nice together. “You can if you want.”

 

She nods so fast her entire body shakes with it. “I would. You can show me how you draw so pretty!”

 

Peeta smiles. “I’d like that, too.”

 

**XXX**

 

When his daddy comes to collect him after school, Peeta bounds up to him and wraps his arms around his legs. It’s been the best day ever! Even better than the time Mr. Cinna brought in cupcakes and let everyone have the afternoon to do whatever they wanted.

 

Warm hands settle on his shoulders and ruffle his coat. “Hello to you, too, Peeta.”

 

Peeta grins and just about explodes with the force of his words: “I made a new friend!”

 

His daddy chuckles. “Is that right?”

 

Peeta tugs on his daddy’s trouser leg until he bends down with a quiet grunt. “Daddy,” Peeta whispers. “She can _sing,_ Daddy! Like the mockingjays.”

 

“She can?” He looks around the schoolyard, full of Peeta’s classmates and their parents. “Where is your little mockingjay, then?”

 

“Her name’s Katniss, Daddy.”

 

He smiles. “Oh, I’m sorry. Where’s Katniss, then?”

 

“Over there!” He flings a finger out towards where Katniss stands with her daddy. Her daddy’s buttoning up her bright red coat, then pressing a kiss to her nose. Katniss laughs and it’s such a pretty sound, like bells or music.

 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” his daddy murmurs, more to himself. “Rowan Everdeen.”

 

Peeta stares up at him. “Do you know Katniss’ daddy?”

 

His daddy jumps, like he forgot Peeta was there, and nods. “I used to, a long time ago. You want to know something else neat, Peeta?

 

“I used to know Katniss’ mother, as well. We went to the same school. I nearly married her, too, but she ran off with Mr. Everdeen there before I could ask.”

 

“Really?” Peeta says, eyes wide. “But, Daddy, why would she have run of with Mr. Everdeen when she could have married you?”

 

His daddy smiles a distant, wistful smile. “Because, Peeta, just like your Katniss, when Mr. Everdeen sings, even the birds stop to listen. Now.” He reaches down and tickles Peeta’s belly; Peeta lets out a high, squeaking laugh. “Your mum’s out visiting your grandma, Mr. Boggs is closing up the bakery, so let’s go get your brothers and head home so we can make some cookies, all right?”

 

Peeta grins, showing off the gap where he lost one of his front teeth earlier that week, and lets his daddy take his hand. Together they start on the short journey to the primary school where his brothers are waiting. As they trudge along to the sound of pebbles crushing beneath their feet, Peeta thinks he might be a little bit like Katniss’ mother: when he heard Katniss sing, he thinks he might have given his heart away, too.

 

Peeta furrows his brows. “Hey, Daddy? I think I might wanna marry Katniss one day.”

 

His daddy laughs, a big, booming sound, loud in the cool, quiet afternoon. “Is that right, Peeta?”

 

Peeta nods.

 

“You better hold on; those Everdeen women are slippery.”

 

He pauses to ponder that. “Do I hafta sing, too, Daddy?” Because he’s not sure he could manage it if he has to sing. Birds would sing over him rather than stay quiet.

 

“Just be kind, son. Kind and respectful, all right?”

 

Peeta nods again, his eyes wide. “I will, Daddy. I promise.”

 

His daddy reaches down and ruffles his curls, and he smiles again. “Good boy.”

 

**XXX**

_Age 7_

A hard, frantic knock at the front door wakes Peeta before the sun is even up. His eyes are still foggy with sleep, but he can make out the numbers 4:42 glowing green on his alarm clock. He wouldn’t mind so much if it was a Sunday — on Sundays, he rises early with his dad and Bran to help with the bakery prep. But today is a Saturday, the only day of the week he ever gets to sleep in.

 

He rubs the grit from his eyes and slides out from bed, careful not to wake up Rye in the bunk above from him. Rye’s eleven now, and he can sleep through just about anything, even the big mixers their dad uses downstairs, but Peeta still likes to be careful. Just in case.

 

As Peeta inches his faded blue door open, grateful for the thousandth time that the hinges are quiet, low voices come up from the bottom of the stairs: his father’s, and someone else that sounds kind of familiar.

 

“… long has it been?”

 

“Not too long. Her water broke around one, but Vi wanted to wait a bit longer before tethering herself to a hospital bed. Katniss took almost thirty hours so she’s wary this time, that’s for sure.”

 

Peeta perks. Is Katniss down there? And what took her thirty hours?

 

His dad laughs. “Perdy’s longest was eight hours. Impatient boys, I guess.”

 

Peeta furrows his brow. Isn’t eight hours a long time, too? It’s longer than a school day, and they take _ages_.

 

“Ah, speaking of, where is Perdita?”

 

“Gone for the week, visiting her sister in the Capitol.”

 

Peeta crawls along the carpeted floor until he reaches the top of the staircase. If he angles himself just right, he can see down without anyone seeing him. He’s used this trick lots of times. Katniss’ dad is down there, facing off with his dad like cowboys in his favourite western movies, crossed arms and squinty gazes pointed at each other and all _This town ain’t big enough for the two of us._

Mr. Everdeen clears his throat. “Good,” he says. It sounds like he’s saying more than that, but Peeta doesn’t quite get it. “You sure this is all right?”

 

His dad laughs. “Are you kidding? Peeta will be thrilled. It’ll be like a long playdate.”

 

Mr. Everdeen nods and jerks his thumb behind him, where a car still rumbles. “I’ll go grab her then. She’s probably gone back to sleep.”

 

“The couch is big enough to fit ten of her. You can lay her down there and I’ll find her a blanket.”

 

Mr. Everdeen vanishes from the doorway and reappears moments later with a sleepy Katniss in his arms and her green backpack slung over his shoulders. Peeta’s dad carries the spare orange blanket and leads Mr. Everdeen to the living room. Peeta would sneak closer, but the last three stairs always squeak, and after hurting his ankle the first time he tried, he doesn’t want to make the jump.

 

The front door clicks shut and the stairs squeak anyway. Peeta freezes and looks back to the blue of his door; there isn’t enough time to run back!

 

“Thought you might be lurking up here, Peeta.”

 

Peeta inches out from his little nook and finds his dad standing halfway up the stairs, smiling at him. Peeta moves closer to the top of the stairs, where he stands taller than his dad for once.

 

“Is Katniss down there, Dad?”

 

He nods. “Mrs. Everdeen is having her baby, so Katniss is going to be staying with us for a while.”

 

Peeta’s smile spreads wide. “Really?”

 

His dad chuckles and moves up the last few steps, becoming taller and taller, leaving Peeta the baby of the family once again. “Really. But’s it’s still early, so Katniss is going to sleep on the couch for a bit longer. Do you want to go back to sleep or do you want to come help me in the kitchen?”

 

Peeta stops to think about it. The extra little bit of sleep would be nice, but he loves helping his dad in the kitchen more than just about anything. “I’ll help you in the kitchen.” It’s always much nicer to help when his mother is out and not ducking through the kitchen, trying to find things wrong with everything.

 

“Good. But we’ll have to be quiet, so we don’t wake Katniss up.”

 

Peeta gives a grave nod.

 

“Go clean up,” he prompts, waving towards the cracked-open door of the upstairs bathroom. “I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

 

**XXX**

 

“Are you excited to be a big sister?” Peeta asks Katniss. She’s been over for _hours_ now. They’ve made cookies, played too many rounds of hide-and-seek, and watched more Disney movies than he can count. Peeta won two out of three rounds of rock-paper-scissors to choose what they did next, so now they’re drawing, paper and crayons and pencils spread out all over the table. His mother would have yelled at him by now, he thinks to himself as he draws out his underwater scene, because of all the mess. He shakes the thought from his head and reaches for the orange and yellow pencils to shade in a starfish.

 

Katniss shrugs, dragging her green crayon across her paper. She’s drawing out a forest of some kind, but he can’t make out the details. Katniss doesn’t like drawing details as much as he does.

 

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

 

“I think you’ll be a good big sister,” Peeta says with his own half-hearted attempt at a scowl. He glares up at the doors leading to his brothers’ rooms. They left to visit friends as soon as breakfast was finished and he doubts he’ll see them again before dinner. “My brothers are mean. You won’t be mean.”

 

Katniss sits up straighter, dropping the crayon back to the table with a clatter. “Of course I won’t be mean!”

 

“That’s what I said!”

 

She huffs and gathers up her crayon again in her tight fist, digging it into the paper and smearing it everywhere.

 

“Where’s your mum, anyway? I haven’t seen her all day.”

 

Peeta tenses, relaxes, tugs down the sleeve of his shirt as far as it’ll go. “Away again.”

 

Katniss makes a humming sound. “She sure goes away a lot.”

 

Peeta glances around, making sure his dad isn’t around to hear. He lowers his voice to a whisper and says, “I think she gets sick of us.”

 

Katniss crinkles her nose. “That’s stupid. Why would she get sick of you?”

 

“I dunno. She gets sick of lots of things pretty quick. This one time, she —” He cuts himself off, his eyes blown wide. He never, ever talks about the stuff his mother says and does to him. Never. Not even to Katniss.

 

Katniss looks at him, her eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t like your mum very much.”

 

Peeta swallows. “I don’t know if I do, either.”

 

Katniss crosses her arms over her chest, scowling. “I’m bored.”

 

Peeta frowns, looking around at the piles of drawings they’ve done together. Seascapes, rainforests, bushland, desert; how can she be bored? “You are?”

 

She hums, dragging her crayon across the page.

 

“Do you… ah, do you wanna go visit Delly or something?”

 

She cocks her head at him. “Delly from class?”

 

“Yeah. She lives next door to me. Thom from class lives on the other side, too.”

 

“Oh.” She frowns. “No, I don’t think I want to visit Delly. Or Thom.”

 

“Okay.” He looks around the house. What haven’t they done yet? What would Katniss like? “Wanna go play outside or something?”

 

Her eyes brighten as she nods, bolting for the door before he can follow. Maybe he should have suggested going outside earlier, because Katniss does love his backyard. Hers just has a little patch of grass and Mrs. Everdeen’s wilting, yellow veggie garden. She’s told him before that not much grows in the dirt out by the Seam; there’s too much coal dust from the old mines in everything.

 

“Hey, Peeta!” she calls to him from the porch. “Where’d you get that box?”

 

He steps over the door and stops next to her. The box is huge: taller than him and three times as wide. “Dad had to buy a new fridge for the bakery. Rye and me had it in the house to play spaceships but Mum made us take it out.”

 

Katniss drags the box into the yard and settles it on its side. With a wide smile, she drops down on her hands and knees and crawls inside. He hears her squeak.

 

“It’s like a cave in here!” she calls out, her voice echoing. He watches the box rattle, hears it rustle, as Katniss emerges again, a huge, wide grin on her face. “We can pretend we’re in a jungle or something!”

 

“I guess.” He kind of wants to go back inside and keep drawing, but it’s hard to say anything when Katniss is smiling the way she is, like he’s given her a wonderful present.

 

“I know!” she exclaims. “We could be lost explorers! And we stumbled upon this cave when you got hurt!”

 

“I got hurt?”

 

“Yeah. You hurt your, uh…” She looks him up and down. “Your leg got… stabbed. So you can’t walk.”

 

“What stabbed me in the jungle?”

 

“I don’t know. You fell on a pointy stick? So now you have to stay here while I get help.”

 

“But I can walk just fine!”

 

“Ugh!” She rolls her eyes. “We’re just playing, Peeta. It’s not real. Now, get in the cave. You’ll be safe there.”

 

It sounds like a dumb game, but Peeta sighs and climbs into the box. She crawls in after him, and it strikes Peeta that maybe the box isn’t as big as he thought. Katniss’ warmth is all around him, and he’s aware of every little move she makes.

 

She kneels beside him and pretends to fuss with his leg. Peeta bites his lip to keep from sighing again in annoyance.

 

“There!” she says, patting him. “You should be okay for now.”

 

“What did you do to it?” The fabric around his shin is tight, like she’s tucked it all under his leg.

 

He moves to sit up and look at it, but Katniss sets a hand on his chest, keeping him flat on the ground. “No! You’re hurt, remember? I’m going to go look for food and stuff.”

 

“But I can help. You’ve showed me what stuff outside we can eat before.”

 

She huffs. “No, you can’t! Besides, you’re safe here, and I need to keep exploring.” With a nod at her logic, she shimmies out from the box — cave — and closes the flaps behind her, leaving him in a small, musty world of half-dark and half-light.

 

He settles back down and lets out a breath, reaching up a hand to scratch through his hair. He can hear Katniss on the other side, pulling up weeds from the yard. He didn’t believe her the first time she told him he could eat dandelion greens, but she’d eaten a whole mouthful in front of him and nothing happened. It’s not as if he’d been waiting for her to drop dead or anything like that, but he’s still not sure he wants to eat weeds.

 

The flaps split open again, letting bright shards of sunlight through. Katniss stands in the entryway of, her hands full of dandelion greens and other random weeds. She drops down on her knees and shuffles back in.

 

“I found heaps,” she exclaims. She scoots closer, hands out to show him her haul, and her eyes narrow in on his arm; it’s like he’s watching the smile fall off her face in slow motion.

 

“Peeta!” She drops the weeds all over him and snatches his arm, bringing it up to her face where she stares at it like it’s wronged her somehow. “Where did you get that bruise? It’s huge!”

 

He looks down and cringes; his too-big sleeve rode up when he lifted his arm, showing off the huge purple-yellow bruise sitting just under his elbow and halfway down to his wrist, hurting his arm and his heart every time it bends.

 

He pushes the sleeve down, but she shoves it back up. “It’s nothing,” he mutters while she runs her fingers around the edge of it. “Bran was showing me how to wrestle.”

 

“Uh-huh.” She doesn’t look like she believes him. “You get lots of bruises.”

 

“My brothers,” Peeta says, his voice weak, but with an edge; he’s begging her to believe him, to not press it. “They’re… rough sometimes, and I’m so much littler, and —”

 

Katniss surprises him by leaning in and kissing the bruise.

 

He stares at her for a long moment, with no idea what to say.

 

“That’s what… my mum does that for me,” she says, her cheeks bright red. “You know, when I get… when I have a bruise or a sore. To make it feel better.”

 

“It feels better,” he tells her immediately. “Way better.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, really.”

 

“Katniss?” A voice calls out from the house. Not his dad, so it must be…

 

“Daddy!” Katniss flies out of the box and across the yard. Peeta slides himself out after her, keeping his hurt arm tucked tight against him so he doesn’t knock it.

 

As he approaches the foyer, Mr. Everdeen is deep in conversation with his dad, a massive grin on his stubbled face, Katniss’ backpack already packed and slung over his shoulder.

 

“Daddy!” Katniss launches herself into her father’s arms. He scoops her up and spins her in a wide circle; Peeta watches on with a small smile. His dad hurt his back doing too much heavy lifting in the bakery last year; he hasn’t been able to pick Peeta up like that since. “Has it happened?”

 

“Sure has.” Mr. Everdeen grins. “You ready to go meet your baby sister, little mockingjay?”

 

Katniss nods, that elated, full-body nod she does sometimes. “Does she have a name?”

 

“Well, since you and your mum are flowers, we decided your sister should be a flower, too: Primrose. Or Prim for short.”

 

“I like primroses, Daddy.”

 

He tweaks her nose and carries her out the door. “Well, ain’t that lucky, then?” Mr. Everdeen turns to Peeta’s dad and nods. “Thanks again for today, James.”

 

“No problem at all, Rowan. Send Vi my best.”

 

Mr. Everdeen grumbles something Peeta doesn’t quite hear.

 

“Bye-bye, Peeta!” Katniss calls out, waving to him from over her dad’s shoulder as he walks her out the door. “I’ll see you at school on Monday.”

 

“Bye, Katniss,” he calls back. He watches from the window as Mr. Everdeen settles her in the back of the car and sets off down the street.

 

“You have fun today, Peeta?” His dad appears at his side, looking down on him with a smile.

 

“Yeah!” he exclaims. “Katniss should come over like that every Saturday.”

 

His dad laughs. “I don’t think Mrs. Everdeen’s body could take it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing. So, still think you might want to marry Katniss, then?”

 

He twists up his face to hide the flush, but he’s so pale that there’s never been a point. “She likes to play dumb explorer games.”

 

“But you play them with her anyway?”

 

“Yeah, ‘cause they make her happy.”

 

His dad gives him a knowing smile and backs away towards the kitchen.

**XXX**

_Age 11_

 

Peeta swears they’ve lumped him and Katniss in different classes on purpose. They aren’t troublesome students by any means, but Peeta has lost count of the amount of times he and Katniss have been told off or separated because they wouldn’t stop talking and giggling to themselves.

 

He never thought their teachers minded that much, though: they always smiled when they were telling them off. But now, at their first day of middle school, glaring down at timetables that don’t even show one shared class, he’s been proven wrong.

 

“We must be famous,” Katniss tells him, grinning.

 

Peeta shrugs and frowns at his timetable. “Still sucks, though.”

 

She leans into him, loose bits of hair tickling his nose, and holds her own timetable in front of them. “Yeah, but see? We still have lunch at the same time.”

 

Peeta takes in a deep breath and bites back a sigh; it’s the same scent it’s been for years: mint, with a twist of pine. So many other girls smell like berries or sugar, but Katniss always smells sweet in a different way; comforting and calming. Warm and familiar, a little bit like Christmastime.

 

He smiles. “That’s something, I guess.”

 

Katniss’ lips twist into a smirk. “You’ve got maths first. With Mr. Brutus.” She crinkles her nose. “Sounds mean.”

 

Peeta glances at her timetable again. “And you have English.”

 

She nods. “With Ms. Trinket. Gale told me about her.”

 

Peeta fights the urge to roll his eyes. _Gale Hawthorne._ Katniss’ _other_ best friend and Peeta’s least favourite person on the planet. He’s two years above them and thinks he’s so cool with the car he and his dad have been working on that’ll _totally be his when they’re finished_. He calls Katniss ‘Catnip’ and never stops, not even when she asks him not to. Gale Hawthorne is a massive jerk.

 

“Really?” he says, trying not to sound as ticked as he is. “What does he say?”

 

Katniss grins, like it’s the funniest joke she’s ever heard. “That she wears different coloured wigs every day and the silliest makeup he’s ever seen, like the ladies on the ads for that show about the Capitol housewives.”

 

Peeta makes an odd sound and slams his locker door shut. “I’m sure she’s nice, though.”

 

She hums, like she doesn’t quite believe him. “Maybe.” She gathers her books and her binder to her chest and turns down the hall. “Save me a seat at lunch?”

 

“Like you even have to ask.” He sets off in the opposite direction. “Have fun!”

 

She snorts. “You, too.”

 

Peeta shakes his head once he’s sure she’s not watching anymore; without Katniss with him to make him laugh, he’s not sure fun will be possible. He ambles off to his classroom, passing through a group of kids he recognises maybe half of. He slips into an empty seat on an unoccupied row and sets his books down in a haphazard pile.

 

An unfamiliar boy — he must have transferred here, Peeta supposes — at least half a head taller than him, with bronze-red hair like new pennies and bright green eyes, parks himself in the empty seat next to Peeta without a word. Peeta shoots looks up and down the row. None of the other seats are taken; why the hell is he sitting right next to him?

 

As the other kids fill in the remaining seats, not a word passes between Peeta and the red-haired boy.

 

But once the teacher starts, he _won’t shut up_.

 

“Mr. Brutus,” the boy whispers as the teacher takes roll call. “You think that’s his real name?”

 

Peeta shrugs and drags his pencil up and down the spiral edge of his notebook. “I don’t know. Probably?”

 

“You think he’s married? You think there’s a Mrs. Brutus out there somewhere?”

 

Peeta says nothing.

 

“What about a baby Brutus?”

 

That does it. He slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle the laugh that bursts forth without permission. Now he’s _that person_ ; everyone in their class swivels in their seats to stare at him.

 

“You two, down the back,” Mr. Brutus snaps, glaring at them. “Pipe down while I’m talking.”

 

Peeta nods, his cheeks burning. “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

 

The boy gives a wide grin. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding even a little bit apologetic.

 

Mr. Brutus rolls through a few more names, then:

 

“So, what’s your name?”

 

“Are you serious?” Peeta hisses. “Shut up! You already got us into trouble.”

 

The boy shrugs and shows off a smile complete with deep-set dimples. He looks like a butt. “So talk quiet. It’ll be fine.”

 

Peeta rolls his eyes. “Peeta.”

 

“Peter?”

 

Peeta sighs. He needs a dollar for every time he’s explained this to a person. He’d be a millionaire for sure by now. “No, Peet-ah. With an ‘a’ at the end. Like the…” He rolls his eyes. “Kind of like the bread.”

 

The boy nods, slow, like he’s contemplating something. At least he isn’t laughing like most people do. “That’s an interesting name.”

 

Peeta shrugs. “It’s all right, I guess. What’s your name?”

 

“Finnick.”

 

“That’s an interesting name, too.” Mr. Brutus calls out his name, and Peeta quickly calls out, “Here.”

 

“It’s all right, I guess.” Finnick smirks and turns in his seat to face the front, sticks something crunchy-sounding in his mouth. “Hey, you want a sugar cube?”

 

“What, no!” Peeta wrinkles his nose. “Where are you keeping them anyway?”

 

Mr. Brutus calls Finnick’s name. He calls back, “Yep!”

 

He turns back to Peeta and whispers, “In my pocket,” as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Where else am I meant to keep them?”

 

“I don’t know, in your lunchbox? That’s gross.”

 

“That’s _delicious_.”

 

Peeta wrinkles his nose. “You’re kinda weird, you know that?”

 

Finnick grins, showing those deep butt dimples at the edges again. “Thanks.”

 

“Hey,” Finnick says while Mr. Brutus is writing notes on the board. “You got social studies next?” Peeta nods. “Me, too. Do you maybe want to sit with me again? We’ve got someone called Chaff, so I don’t have any jokes about that name, except maybe something about chafing, but—”

 

“I do,” Peeta cuts in, a small smile on his lips. Chaff and his _almost_ sleazy tendencies are the stuff of legend. “My brothers had Chaff when they were in middle school. I know some stories.”

 

“I think I’m going to like you, Peeta.”

 

Peeta shrugs and turns his attention to the board, a tiny smile tugging at him. “You seem all right, too, Finnick.”

**XXX**

“Did you have a good day?” Katniss asks him. They’re slumped against the fence at the front of the school waiting for their dads to come collect them. It’s gone ten minutes since they were let out and there’s still no sign of them, but Peeta isn’t surprised, and neither is Katniss. Peeta’s dad is probably still waiting for Mr. Boggs to come relieve him, and Katniss’ dad is probably still collecting Prim from the nearby pre-school.

 

“It was okay,” he says, shrugging. “I think I might have made a new friend.”

 

“Really? Who?”

 

“A guy named Finnick. He said he and his family moved here from… somewhere near the sea; I don’t remember where he said exactly.”

 

“I sat with Madge in my classes.” They both know Madge, the blonde-haired mayor’s daughter, but neither of them have ever talked to her before.

 

“Is she nice?”

 

“She’s quiet, but yeah, I think so. She let me borrow a pen when mine broke. What about Finnick?”

 

“Kind of a tool.” Katniss snorts and he smiles. “But he seems okay, I think.”

 

“That’s good.” She turns to look at him, bracing her hip against the wall. “I still missed you, though. I missed your drawings.”

 

He smiles at her, a rush of warmth and affection surging through him. “I missed you, too. It’s not the same without your notes.”

 

She’s quiet for a moment, then: “Hey, Peeta?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You’re still my best friend. No matter what, okay?”

 

He grins and reaches out to take her hand in his. They don’t do this often, the touching thing, but it’s… nice. Really nice. “You’re my best friend, too. No matter what.”

**XXX**

_Age 13_

When Peeta’s parents’ divorce is finalised, relief like the coolest water in the hottest desert washes over him.

 

There’s a tinge of sadness there, too, though it doesn’t have much to do with the split itself; cruel and indifferent though she is, was, and probably always will be, Perdita Mellark is still his mother. How can a person — a _mother_ — hate their children as much as she hates him and his brothers? What did they do? With her gone, all the way on the other side of the country now with no way of contacting her that he knows of, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get those answers.

 

For the first time in his life, Peeta sails uninterrupted down the stairs to the kitchen and pops open the fridge. With his mother in the room, the simple journey would be precarious one, with his head dipped and his footsteps not as silent as he would like. His mother would always catch him, beat him down with words like weapons, and sometimes with actual weapons, too. He winces as the ache in his shoulder and neck flares up again, his arm hot and itching in his cast.

 

He never said a word to his father about how his mother treated him but in the end, it didn’t matter. He saw the whole thing: saw Peeta stumble through the packed bakery kitchen. Drop a tray of… Peeta thinks it was vanilla slice, but he doesn’t remember _the incident_ all that well. Saw his wife take a rolling pin and lay it into his youngest son, over and over again.

 

Peeta shakes his head of the memory — it’s a painful, shameful one he’d rather not relive, not even to Dr. Aurelius, the therapist his dad called in to ‘talk’ to him — and plucks a can of orange soda from the very back of the topmost shelf where Bran likes to stash his things when he’s home during his semester break. His mother would have never let soda in the house, either, but things are changing, quicker than Peeta can keep up with.

 

There’s a tentative knock on the front door, but he’d recognise the rhythm anywhere.

 

He all but throws the soda back in the fridge and bolts down the hall — and regrets it all when another bolt of pain lances him from shoulder to wrist. He wrenches the door open, his heart jumping at the sight of his best friend, hair in a braid as usual, with a tiny, shy, unsure smile on her lips, holding cloth-covered tray in her hands.

 

“Katniss!” He beams, elated to see her again. She visited once when he was released from hospital, but that was weeks ago. He hasn’t seen her since.

 

“Sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she tells him as she steps over the threshold and looks out around his house with wary eyes, like she isn’t sure if she’s meant to be there. “Dad told me I should wait a little while before visiting.”

 

“You’re always welcome here, Katniss,” his dad cuts in from over his shoulder. Peeta almost jumps; he had no idea he was standing there. “We’re happy to have you.”

 

Even he looks lighter, Peeta notes. There are still dark circles lingering under his eyes, and there are more wrinkles marring his face than there should be from the taxing past few weeks, but there’s a spark in his eyes Peeta can’t remember ever seeing; he likes it, loves seeing his father come back to life out from under his mother’s thumb.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Mellark. Mum said I should give these to you,” Katniss says, holding the tray out for his dad to take. “She said she remembers you liking these?”

 

His dad steps forward and takes the tray from Katniss’ arms, lifting the cloth at the corner and letting out a loud laugh.

 

“Lemon squares,” he says, still chuckling. “Haven’t had these since, well, since your mum made them in high school. Tell her I said thank you, Katniss.”

 

Katniss shrugs and packs her hands into her pockets. “I will.”

 

“Want to come upstairs, Katniss?” Peeta asks her.

 

She shrugs again and follows him up, waving goodbye to his dad, swinging herself up with the bannister to avoid the squeaking stairs. More out of habit than anything else, Peeta thinks, because his mother always hated that squeak, and Katniss was always wary of probing her.

 

Having a girl for a best friend and a mother like his means Peeta has always kept his room as spotless as possible — as much a strange sense of obligation as a wary peace offering — but the recent absence of both in his life means his room’s one hell of a sty.

 

“Leave the door open,” his dad calls after him, a dash of amusement colouring his tone. Peeta rolls his eyes.  


“Yes, Dad,” he calls back. What he thinks they’re going to do, Peeta has no idea. At least, no ideas he’s willing to entertain just now.

 

“Sorry about the mess,” he says, kicking old clothes under his bed. He cracks open the window, letting the scent of sunshine and just-mown grass waft in.

 

She shrugs. Again. Why is she acting so weird? “It’s okay.”

 

They settle side by side on his bed, fingers only inches from touching.

 

“How’s your arm?” she asks, looking up and down his cast and up to the knot of his sling.

 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Kind of hurts when I’m trying to sleep, but the doctor gave me some medicine.”

 

She nods, biting her lip. “I remember when I broke my wrist. That hurt a lot, too. I had to take medicine to sleep.”

 

He remembers it, too. He had been with her the day she broke it, when she fell out of the tree in her backyard. He’d almost passed out when he helped her back up and saw the awkward angle of her wrist.

 

She twiddles her thumbs in her lap, looking anywhere but at him. “I, um…” She takes a deep breath. “I heard my mum and dad talking the other day. About you. About how you, um… how you hurt your arm.”

 

He freezes, swallows around the lump in his throat. “Oh.”

 

“They said your mum did it,” she whispers. “With a rolling pin. Is that true?”

 

Peeta stares out the window, where small black birds flutter about the branches of the olive trees. Each year, his mother puts nets over the trees to stop the birds from eating the fruit, but no one’s done that this year. The oil that they’d press and bottle to sell at the bakery bought in hundreds of extra dollars. This time of year, his mother would smile more, be less inclined to lash out or hurt him. He and his brothers would have a few months to breathe for once.

 

Peeta nods, but it’s creaky, a joint on a rusty hinge.

 

Katniss says nothing, just reaches out and takes the hand of his uninjured arm. They sit side by side, legs swinging just above the ground. Peeta stares down at Katniss’ hand in his, and something in him shifts.

 

Splinters.

 

Shatters.

 

The sound he makes would embarrass him in front of anyone else. Hell, he’s still a little embarrassed that Katniss hears it at all, but when her hand flexes and tightens around his — out of fear or encouragement he doesn’t know — he sucks in a deep breath and lets himself fall.

 

“Why couldn’t she love us?” He sobs. “What was so wrong with us that she hated me and Rye and Bran and Dad so much?”

 

Katniss scoots even closer and wraps her arms around him, holding him tight and close without any way to escape. He doesn’t want to, though. The contact is… nice.

 

“There is nothing wrong with any of you,” she whispers fiercely, her warm breath puffing against his ear. “There never was and there never will be. You’re the best person I know, Peeta.”

 

Her words don’t help, but they kind of do, as well. His cries grow louder, but the thoughts in his head — circling on repeat in his mother’s shrill voice — soften, falling quieter and quieter until the impact of them is non-existent. They’ll grow again later, he knows that, but for now, he’ll take what he can get. And he’ll embrace every second of it.

**XXX**

_Age 15_

It’s nights like these that drive Peeta insane.

 

It’s not as though Katniss is out of place in his small room, made even smaller by a wall of bookshelves, the walls themselves covered in pieces of his own artwork and others to hide the horrid floral wallpaper his mother picked when Peeta was young. No, Katniss’ presence is familiar. Katniss’ presence in his bedroom is wonderfully, painfully right.

 

They’re tucked up in his bed, under his plaid blue blanket, sharing his pillow, watching some movie on his computer he can’t even begin to follow the plot of, his arm wrapped around her shoulder to keep her from falling out of his narrow single bed — or so he tells her.

 

She’s so _warm_ , so _soft_. But God, she’s his best friend, and these sorts of thoughts should be _impossible_.

 

But they’re not. They’re too easy, come without thought or prompting and fuck, he hates himself for it.

 

With Katniss so close and so warm and smelling so sweet he resorts to cycling through thoughts of his brothers’ most gruesome wrestling injuries to quell the desire that only grows with each successive moment he spends in Katniss Everdeen’s company: _Rye’s dislocated shoulder. Bran’s mangled fingers. Rye’s broken leg. Bran’s blue-yellow-purple-green bruises._

“Are you all right?” Katniss asks him.

 

There’s a twinge of a cramp in his shoulder; he didn’t even realise he’d tensed and seized.

 

He unwraps his arm from around her and rolls the tightness out of the joint. “Yeah,” he says. “Fine.”

 

She gives a little grunt of assent, but says nothing else.

 

“So,” Katniss says after a long stretch of quiet. “Are you going to say yes?”

 

Peeta glances down at her, but reads nothing from her expression. She stares ahead, the blue glare of the screen propped up between them glowing back in her eyes. “Say yes to what?”

 

“Clove,” she states, like the name warrants no further explanation. “The dance.”

 

Peeta sighs. “I told her I’d think about it.”

 

“You don’t want to?” Katniss twists her body into his, her front pressed against his side. Peeta sucks in a breath and holds it there, too afraid to let it loose. He cycles on to thinking about oven burns, the sharp stab of searing pain…

 

“She’s very pretty,” she whispers when he says nothing.

 

Peeta almost snorts. Clove’s soft brown hair and hazel eyes are pretty, he can’t deny that, but her pointed canine teeth and penchant for throwing knives make her fucking terrifying.

 

“I’ve seen prettier.”

 

“Like who?” Katniss retorts. “Cashmere?”

 

Cashmere D’Agostino. His first kiss and his first… experience. He’d loved and hated every minute of her lips on his and her small hand on his cock. The guilt he’d felt afterwards almost swallowed him whole when he met Katniss the next day. He swore she’d be able to look him up and down and know everything he’d done. Guilt still stalks him for the way he shot Cashmere down afterwards, but doesn’t follow close enough, it seems.

 

“I… I guess,” he croaks. It’s like he’s walked into her crosshairs with no possible chance for escape, and there’s a reason he never opts to join Katniss and her father on their hunting trips.

 

“And Madge. Madge is very pretty.” When they were chucked into separate classes, as he had gravitated towards Finnick, Katniss gravitated towards Madge. While Peeta wouldn’t ever begrudge Katniss a female friend that isn’t her sister, he’s never felt that comfortable around Madge, whose coy touches and flirty giggles and unnecessary need for close-spoken whispers render him near speechless whenever she joins them for lunch. Only the fact that Madge’s closeness makes Katniss look like smoke is coming out of her ears makes it worthwhile.

 

“What about you?” he shoots back. “I know Gale asked you.”

 

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” She rolls her eyes. “I told him no! Besides, Gale’s got a crush on Madge! And anyway, he knows we’re just friends.”

 

“Does he really?”

 

“Yes! He knows and I know and everyone knows!” She wriggles out from under his arm and flops back against his pillow. “Except you, I guess,” she tacks on in a low mutter.

 

Peeta sighs, leaning back and tipping his head up to the ceiling. There used to be glow-in-the-dark stars up there, but they’ve fallen over the years, leaving just their sticky-glue outline. Much less magical. “Where’s this coming from, Katniss? Are you jealous or something?”

 

She crosses her arms over her chest and sinks further into his mattress. “No.”

 

“Yes, you are,” he needles her, because he’s never learned his lesson where Katniss and her temper are concerned. “What’s your problem, anyway? You aren’t my girlfriend, so what’s it to you if someone wants to go to the dance with me, huh?”

 

She balls her hands into tight, tiny fists. “I just… I don’t want to lose you, okay?”

 

Every part of him coming to a crashing, grinding halt. He chances a glance at Katniss’ face; her eyes are closed, her lips set in a tight, straight line. There’s a quiver in her chin he’s never seen before, a fear to her expression unfamiliar and unwelcome.

 

He shuts the laptop with the movie still mid-action and slides it down the bed to sit between their feet.

 

Peeta reaches down between them and loosens her fingers from their fists, wrapping them in his. He admires the contrast of their skin together, as he always does. They shouldn’t fit together, but they do. He has more sketches of this very image down in his notepads than anything else, dating back an entire decade, testament to the enduring nature of their friendship.

 

He squeezes her hand until she opens her eyes; they’re glossy and wide and red. Something in him sinks. “You’re not going lose me, Katniss. Not over some stupid dance, anyway.”

 

She shakes her head and dips her head so her chin is resting on her chest. “You can’t promise that.”

 

“I know,” he concedes, “but you’ll have me for as long as I can give you, for as long as you’ll want me.”

 

“Promise?”

 

He lifts her chin with the tips of his fingers to look her in the eye. “Promise.”

 

She sighs and sets her head against his shoulder; he settles his against her hair. Her leg rests halfway on top of his; his hand comes around her to brush his thumb up and down her arm. It’s all so, so distracting but he could never dream of asking her to move. They don’t bother with the movie again; it was a lost cause from the beginning, anyway, and with all the blood flowing _away_ from his brain he doubts he could have concentrated on a damn second of it any longer.

 

After an eternity of silence, Peeta clears his throat. His brain might not quite be all there right now, but he’s never been surer about what he wants to ask.

 

“Hey, Katniss? Do you, uh… maybe want to go to the dance with me, then? If I’m not going with Clove, and you’re not going with Gale…”

 

He trails off at her wide-eyed look of panic. _Shit, shit, shit_!

 

“As friends,” he tacks on. “Just as… friends.”

 

Something crosses over her face, a little like disappointment, a little like relief.

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

 

His heart slams against his chest, but not in a bad way — in a good way, in the best way — and he couldn’t stop the grin creeping onto his lips if he tried. “Okay? Really?”

 

She rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her lips wide enough to rival his. “Yes, Peeta, really. I can’t think of anyone I’d like to go with more.”

 

He quirks a brow at her. “You know I can never tell when you’re being sarcastic.”

 

“All part of my mystique.” He laughs as she glances at her watch and sighs. “I should get going,” she says, regret colouring her tone as she slides out of his arms, leaving him cold. “I promised I’d be back by dinner.”

 

He looks over at his digital clock, glowing green in its tight nook on the shelf. It’s almost seven; Katniss has been in his room for hours. With the door closed, too.

 

“Yeah, I guess.” He rubs at his eyes but doesn’t move to follow as Katniss grabs her jacket from the floor and tugs it on.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asks from the doorway.

 

“’Course,” he says. “Hey, Katniss?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You’re going to the dance with me.” He grins, so wide it hurts. “Real or not real.”

 

She rolls her eyes again and laughs. “Real, Peeta.”

 

He flings himself back against the pillow, a goofy smile on his lips.

 

“Peeta?” He turns his head to meet the critical look she’s shooting him. On a normal night, he’d follow her down to the door, but tonight… “Are you okay?”

 

He nods, a little too quickly. It’s a rare occasion that he can’t get her out of his room fast enough. “Yeah. Perfect.”

 

Another look; unconvinced. She shrugs and turns, offering one last wave before she pulls the door closed.

 

As soon as it’s shut he tugs off his shirt and reaches down into his shorts to take his straining cock in hand. How Katniss didn’t notice it the entire time she was there he’ll never know. He doesn’t even bother getting out the lotion from his bedside drawer, instead using the liquid gathering at his tip to slick his movements up and down, to smooth the twist at the head, the memory of her warmth and sweetness and scent guiding every thrust, every stroke, every bow of his back, every moan of her name.

 

“Oh, fuck, Katniss.” He sighs when he comes, all the tension in his pent-up body uncoiling in one, glorious release.

 

He settles back against the pillow that still smells of Katniss’ pine and mint shampoo until his breathing evens out. He hates himself for doing this, for it being Katniss’ name on his lips and her body on his mind whenever he jerks off. She’s his best friend, for fuck’s sake!

 

And try as he might, he wants more. So, so much more.

 

He’s gross and damp, the ropy jets of his come settling, drying and cooling on his skin, but he can’t be screwed getting up to clean himself; he’s too languid and warm.

 

But he remembers one of the last times Katniss spent the night, before their parents deemed them a liability, like he and Katniss were uncontrollable little rabbits who wouldn’t stop going at it if left unsupervised. She’d brought a packet of wet wipes to clean her face with.

 

A package she left in his drawers, that are still there now.

 

He reaches over with his clean hand and tugs the drawer open, rummaging through old sketchbooks, blunt, broken pieces of charcoal, his nondescript bottle of lotion that isn’t fooling anyone, until his hands meet crinkling plastic.

 

He lifts them out of his drawer and pulls back the plastic closure tab. They’re kind of dry, but he doesn’t care; they smell clean and fresh, and just like her.

 

He tries — and fails — not to feel so totally like a dirty pervert as he frees a cloth and wipes himself clean.

**XXX**

_Age 17_

 

“Katniss,” he yells into his cupped hands. “Katniss, where are you?”

 

His throat is hoarse and dry, his wavering voice not faring much better. His feet have started to rebel in his pinched leather shoes, large blisters stinging with each step he takes. He shucked his jacket hours ago, the afternoon heat too much to keep it on, but he can’t stop now.

 

Not when Katniss is missing.

 

He’s checked everywhere he can think of, all her usual haunts and all the little niches they thought themselves geniuses for finding when they were young, but there’s no sign of her. As far as sleepy Panem is concerned, Katniss Everdeen doesn’t exist.

 

He starts along the Seam, near where Katniss lives, still covered in a fine layer of coal dust even though the mines haven’t operated in years. The woods at the very edge are the last place he looks, but he knows he should have looked there first; Katniss becomes someone else when she’s in the woods, someone whose smiles, hard-won in any other circumstance, come free and easy, beautiful in their effortlessness and simplicity.

 

She’s brought him to the lake in the middle of the woods twice before: once when he was twelve, after a particularly vicious tirade from his mother she bore horrible witness to, and again just a few weeks ago.

 

“It’s like my skin feels too tight for the rest of me,” she had told him, hopping back and forth like it was painful to stay motionless. He’d grabbed to hand to still her and hadn’t let go until well after the sun went down. He hadn’t worried on the journey back, though; Katniss knew every path in the wood like it was etched into the back of her hand. Now, he wonders if Katniss might have somehow known what was about to happen, deep in some untapped, intuitive part of her.

 

He follows the worn path through the woods, stopping for nothing, for what seems like hours until he reaches the shore of the huge, wide lake, glinting molten silver in the high sunlight. He casts his gaze along the shore until he reaches the jutting edge of the rickety dock, and the small figure perched at the end of it, their hair shining an almost reddish-black under the sun.

 

“Katniss,” he whispers.

 

The closer he edges the more details he can discern: her dangling feet skimming the shimmering surface of the lake; still dressed in the plain black dress she wore to the funeral earlier that morning; a single blossom of violet, katniss and primrose each from the wreath that adorned the coffin sitting limp in her clenched hand.

 

He’s always been heavy-footed so he doesn’t bother trying to hide himself as he moves closer; he’s never managed to fool her anyway. She doesn’t react as he shuffles along the pier and drops down beside her. It’s all silent and still, save for the rhythmic shudder of her shoulders.

 

Peeta doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. When Katniss turns to him, eyes rimmed red and raw from crying, a thousand silent words pass between them, a connection he’s never experienced with anyone else. One he never wants to experience with anyone else.

 

She doesn’t push him away, doesn’t say a word, the only movement the quiet tremor of her body as it wars against grief and loses.

 

“Oh, Katniss.” Peeta wraps an arm around her and draws her in close, her head falling to his shoulder. He watches the sun sink down into the horizon through blurred eyes as his best friend mourns her father.

 

**XXX**

Every day, he’s driven to distraction. His mind wanders too far to be bought back by the scent of burning bread, and the urgency of his thoughts is making him careless and stupid. More burns have marred the lengths of his forearms over the past few months than he’s had in years.

 

His father doesn’t mind, or so he says. Something tells Peeta his worry is catching, because there’s always the faint look of distraction on his father’s face, too.

 

For the past three months, Peeta has been watching his best friend hide her dwindling frame beneath layers of long sleeves and jackets. Even during the hottest days of their mid-summer break, her father’s long, leather hunting jacket never leaves its place around her shoulders.

 

At first, he assumed it was a comfort thing. Mr. Everdeen always smelled of leather and pine, and even months after his death, the scent still clings to the jacket as though he was wearing it yesterday.

 

Then he started to notice how each week, the jacket would hang off her just a little more. How the sleeves would roll down past her wrists and over her hands. How the hem of it that used to sit mid-thigh began to creep closer to her knees.

 

She won’t tell him what’s happening, either. When he asked the first time, she snapped at him, telling him it was none of his business. Now between her job at the local convenience store and the long hours he’s putting in at the bakery, they haven’t seen each other in weeks, and it’s driving him crazy.

 

The bell above the bakery door cuts into his musings, and just as well; Peeta thinks he could drive himself mad worrying about his best friend.

 

He dusts his hands off on his apron and turns to face the front of the store, his eyes going wide at the sight of the new arrival.

 

“Katniss?”

 

She’s still in the jacket, hands bundling the excess sleeve. Her cheekbones are hollow and deep, but her eyes no different, as bright as they ever were. “I just dropped Prim over at Rue’s for a sleepover,” she tells him, staring down at the bright timber floors. “I had a day off and I just… I haven’t seen you in ages.”

 

He nods. “Yeah.”

 

Already they’ve reached an impasse: Peeta stares at her, Katniss stares at the ground. Not a word passes between them, and Peeta thinks they could cut the unfamiliar tension between them with a butter knife.

 

He clears his throat. “Why don’t you sit down? The rush is pretty much over; you could keep me company for a bit if you’d like?”

 

She stares around the store front for a long moment before she nods and slides into one of the stools sitting along the front counter. Before she can say a word, Peeta sets a warm cheese bun in front of her, not long out of the oven. They’ve always been her favourite, and on a normal day he jokingly stows the buns away to keep her from eating them all. Now, though, he frowns as he watches her hand twitch towards it, but stop, retreating to fold with her other hand on her lap.

 

“I should save it for Prim,” she says, more to herself. “Can I have a bag for it?”

 

“You can have another one just for yourself.”

 

“No, I think… I should just take something back for Prim.”

 

Peeta stares at her, then wipes his hands on a towel and walks around the counter, slipping into the spare stool next to her.

 

“What’s wrong, Katniss?”

 

She shakes her head, but doesn’t raise her eyes to meet his. “Nothing. Why do you keep asking me that?”

 

There has never been a time when she hasn’t been able to talk to him about anything and everything that strikes her, and it’s the same with him to her. They’ve had some of the most mindful, mindless conversations together.

 

“What’s going on, Katniss?”

 

“Nothing,” she mumbles.

 

He slams a hand down on the counter with an echoing, stinging slap. “Bullshit.”

 

She turns to face him, eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

 

Words and worries pour out of him, undammed and free. He ticks each off on his fingers: “You’re pale, sickly, thinner than I’ve ever seen you — and that’s _really_ saying something. You walk around like someone’s just kicked your puppy and you won’t tell me anything! What do you want me to do, just ignore it?”

 

“That would be a good start,” she hisses.

 

He narrows his eyes at her. “Fine,” he says, in a tone unfamiliar even to him in its coldness. He slides off the stool and stalks back around the counter. “I’ve got some prep work to do out back. I’m sure you can show yourself out when you’re ready.”

 

Before he can throw the kitchen door open, he’s halted by a tiny, stifled sob, so quiet he’d think she’d not meant for him to hear it.

 

Quicker than lightning, he’s in front of the counter again, taking Katniss in his arms and holding her tight as she cries against his shoulder.

 

“What’s wrong, Katniss?” he tries again.

 

Katniss hiccups. “I’m so scared, Peeta.”

 

“Of what?” The sobs deepen, stronger and louder. “Katniss, please!”

 

“It’s all gone,” she whispers. “Mum doesn’t go to work anymore. There’s no money coming in besides what I make. I think she might have quit but she doesn’t say anything to me or Prim. She hardly moves away from the couch and when she does it’s to go to her room and cry. I haven’t been able to talk to her in months. I don’t know what to do anymore, Peeta!”

 

“You ask me for help.” He sets his hands on her shoulders and gives her a gentle shake. “We’re best friends, Katniss! When have you ever not been able to ask me for help?”

 

“This is different, Peeta!” she yells, a deep furrow appearing between her brows. “This isn’t help with English essays or a ride to work. This could be life or death!”

 

“All the more reason for you to let me in!” He tears at his hair. “God, Katniss!”

 

“What can you do, Peeta, besides tell me it’s going to be okay? Unless I start dealing drugs or get into money laundering, I can’t cover all the bills and feed everyone on my pay check.”

 

She sighs and tips her forehead to his shoulder. He’s grown heaps in the past year; now he’s a whole head taller than his petite best friend. He’s not sure how he never noticed that.

 

“I have no idea what I’m doing, Peeta. What if they come and take Prim away?”

 

He knows she’s right. The tiny corner store Katniss spends every free minute she has at pays pittance. Sometimes they send Katniss home with a combination of cash and out-of-date cans of food instead of her full wage. And if the authorities ever caught on to what was happening at the Everdeen place…

 

“I’ll help you, you know I will.”

 

She sighs again and buries her face in his neck. “I owe you too much already, Peeta,” she whispers.

 

“It’s not about owing me or anyone else, Katniss. Let me help you and Prim, please?”

 

She trembles in his arms before collapsing into him, melting the bony contours of her body to his own. He runs a hand up and down her back, wincing as his fingers skim over the pronounced ridge of her spine and the sharp protrusion of her shoulder blades.

 

“How’s Prim holding up?” he asks.

 

Katniss sniffles, wipes her nose on her sleeve. “She knows something’s wrong, she worked that out when her teacher sent her home with a note for Mum about her clothes.” She sighs. “She’s so much better with Mum than I am, though. I just… I don’t have the patience anymore.”

He holds her tighter, because he understands indifference and apathy towards maternal figures better than most.

 

“You’re doing all you can. Don’t make yourself feel guilty. You are the strongest, most determined, most incredible person I know,” he whispers into her hair. “You’ll make it work. _We_ will make it work.”

 

She pulls back and stares at him with a wide-eyed look of wonder, the sharp grey of her eyes softening to something ethereal, silvery. “What did I do to deserve you?”

 

“You stole my heart,” he tells her, the most honest truth he can manage.

 

The ghost of a smile tips her lips, so beautiful that it robs him of his breath. “I’m sorry, did you want it back?”

 

“No, I like it right where it is.”

 

Hours later, once the bakery closes its doors for the evening, Peeta grabs the last two loaves of the dense, hearty fruit and nut loaf — a single slice a meal in and of itself — and crams them each into a paper bag. His father watches him, head cocked to the side in question.

 

“I need these,” Peeta says, his tone firm. His father donates the spare loaves to the local homeless shelter, but he shouldn’t miss these. There’s plenty of other leftover loaves on the shelves tonight.

 

His father quirks a brow. “May I ask why?”

 

Peeta has never been able to lie to his father; he’s had the same tell since he was small: he always bites his lip right before, like he’s still piecing the lie together even as he’s being confronted. He sighs and says, “For Katniss and her family.” He shuffles in place, unsure how much to divulge even when his father and Katniss’ parents share a history. “They’re, uh… not doing very well.”

 

His father turns sombre and shakes his head. “Poor Violet,” he murmurs. “What about little Primrose? How’s she doing?”

 

Peeta says nothing.

 

His father sighs and reaches into the cabinets, filling an empty box with different pastries, cakes, slices and pies.

 

“Take these as well,” he says, tying the box up with string and slipping it in the bag beside the loaves. “It’s not much, and God knows it’s probably not healthy, but at least they won’t be hungry, and little Prim deserves something nice.”

 

Peeta nods and sprints for the back door, jumping into his car and speeding off towards the Seam.

 

He pulls up at her house, and his heart falls. The garden had always been well taken care of; the colours of the flowers and the greenery of the grass and fruit trees was so hard won. Now it’s browning around the edges, drying and turning crispy in the heat. The garden would never be something Katniss would put the time into maintaining if she didn’t have to; the price of the time wasted would be way too steep.

 

He hammers on the door and takes a step back, shuffling back and forth on his feet as he waits. He knows she’s home; her battered old hatchback sits alongside her mother’s sedan in the garage, and Prim’s pink bike, with tassels and all, is tipped on its side by the porch.

 

Katniss opens the door, stray strands of her hair escaping her braid, cheeks flushed. Beautiful, luminous as always. Peeta feels that odd little something in his chest tighten at the sight of her, as it always has for years now.

 

He presses the bag into her hands before she can speak. His heart sinks at her mother sprawled out, dead-eyed on the sofa just beyond the door.

 

“Whatever you want, whenever you want it, it’s yours, Katniss. Always.”

 

He leans in quick and presses a kiss to her cheek, closer to her lips than he’s ever dared touch. She reaches a hand up to touch the spot where he kissed as he turns to leave, a look of awe echoing back at him.

**XXX**

_Age 18_

 

They drive out to the cliff-face overlooking their town, countless tiny, twinkling lights mirroring the night sky.

 

On a normal night, the cliff-face would be lined with cars: bouncing cars with fogged windows, muffling sighs and screams and moans. Peeta’s heard tell of those nights from the guys on his wrestling team, but he still can’t get his head around the logistics of having sex in a closed car by a cliff-face. One wrong move and someone might kick the hand break in the throes of passion and they’d topple right off the edge.

 

Tonight, though, is not a normal night.

 

Tonight, the cliff-face is deserted. Silent. Still.

 

They graduated earlier today, and everyone he knows is back in town, at Madge’s house, celebrating the night away at the only house in tiny Panem big enough to accommodate over a hundred students.

 

He shifts the car into park and lets out a breath. Katniss does the same.

 

“Are you sure you didn’t want to go?” Katniss asks him, for what feels like the thousandth time that evening.

 

He sighs and unclips his seat belt. “I told you already, Katniss. I’m positive I didn’t want to go.”

 

Why would he want to spend the night in a house full to the brim of sweaty, drunk seniors who’ll just as soon throw up on his shoes as they’ll give him a hug? Even his good nature has boundaries. Not even Finnick plans on making an appearance, too tied up and gooey-eyed over _Annie_ to even consider leaving her side for anything.

 

“Madge asked you, though,” she presses as he steps out of the car. She follows suit and meets him around the back. “I heard it.”

 

“Then you would have heard me tell her no.”

 

“But she’s your friend.”

 

“She’s your friend, too,” he reminds her. Peeta opens the trunk of the car and lifts out a rug and a picnic basket. “She was your friend well before she was my friend. Are you positive _you_ didn’t want to go?”

 

He laughs as the furrow between her brows sink even deeper, lips twisting into a scowl like she’s tasted something awful.

 

“But Madge is your friend, Katniss,” he teases.

 

“Yeah, well.” She crosses her arms over her chest, lips sinking into a pout. “Maybe I wanted to spend the night with you.”

 

She’s so good at that, saying something so sweet and out of the blue he has to stop and let it absorb, because it might not be real otherwise. He doubts she recognises the ever so slight double entendre, though, or if she does she sidesteps it well; she’s always been so… pure. Perfect.

 

“Maybe I’d like to spend the night with you, too,” he murmurs. He clears his throat and drops the charged moment like a ball of flames, letting it fizzle out even as the ashes of it remain. “Anyway, just here?”

 

Katniss crosses her arms and looks out over the drop. “I think we should move closer to the edge, so we can see the whole town.”

 

Peeta gives a nervous chuckle. “I can see the town just fine from back here, thanks.”

 

“Well, I’m moving in for a closer look.” She scales the nearest tree and perches herself in a branch reaching out within scant inches of the cliff’s edge.

 

“It’s beautiful up here, Peeta!”

 

“I’m sure it is. Can you scoot in a bit, Katniss? I’m getting anxiety watching you sit there like that.”

 

She ignores him, staring out over the edge with a sort of wistful calm. “It’s so quiet up here.”

 

He spreads out the blanket, tugging out the corners and smoothing over the ripples. “You’ll have to come down if you want to eat, because there’s no way in hell I’m bringing this up for you.”

 

He lays out their spread: cheese buns, apple and goat’s cheese tarts, a fruit salad and cold sausages.  One thermos at the very bottom holds Katniss’ favourite passionfruit tea, the other holds hot chocolate made with real chocolate.

 

“This looks delicious.” Katniss slinks up beside him with her usual silent grace.

 

He jumps and lets out a chuckle. “I should make you wear a bell.”

 

“Now, what would be the fun in that?”

 

She winks at him and picks up a paper plate, filling it to the edges with a little bit of everything, plus two cheese buns on top. They eat in silence, their gazes spread out over the horizon. He should have bought his sketchpad with him; he’s captured sunrises, sunsets and all that falls in between, but never a dark, shimmering night.

 

“What are we going to do?” Katniss asks, more to the air than to him or herself, after a long, peaceful silence.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

She sets her plate down and twists to face him. “When I’m at college, and you’re here. We won’t be able to do things like this anymore.”

 

He can’t pretend he hasn’t thought of that. But he also can’t pretend he hasn’t reasoned the hell out of himself about it, either. He has no real desire to carry on with college, even if it is with his best friend; a fine arts degree is the only thing he’d want to pursue, and those are a shot in the dark at the best of times. And besides, he’s already so good at what he does in the bakery.

 

Peeta laughs. “Katniss, Cap U is barely two hours away. Stop acting like we’re never going to see each other again. Unless you think you’ll be too good to hang out with the baker’s kid when you come back on weekends.”

 

He curses the apprehensive little waver in his voice. The only way he can dance around his insecurities is to turn them into jokes, but few things make him as insecure as the fear that, one day, Katniss will realise she can do a whole lot better than him. After over ten years of being attached at the hip, he needs to let her go, let her see what life is like without him there to drag her down.

 

He'll still miss the hell out of her, though.

 

The hand that isn’t clutching a cheese bun like it’s a lifeline wraps around his, squeezing with equal parts reassurance and admonishment.

 

“You are my best friend,” she tells him, voice low, serious, inviting no argument. He’s lost count of the amount of times they’ve had this exact conversation, offered these exact reassurances. Neither of their lives has been all that conducive to growing trust, he supposes, what with their mothers and all the let-downs that have come with them, but why should that mean they can’t trust each other? What does it say about them that they still have so much trouble with it?

 

Still, he nods. “And you’re mine.”

 

“If anything,” she mumbles, “it’s the other way around. What if you realise you really like my not being around you all the time?”

 

She said something like that earlier in the day, not long after they walked the stage to collect their certificates. Something about him finally having _the freedom to do whatever_ you _want_. _You_ , not _we_. It pissed him off then, too.

 

“Don’t talk like that,” he snaps.

 

“Like you haven’t thought about it,” she snarks back. “The poor new girl moves to town and latches onto you like a bad smell you’ll never be rid of.” Her voice hitches at the end; she lets out a shaky breath and starts again. “Aren’t you even a little bit looking forward to getting rid of me for a while? You won’t have to look after me anymore…”

 

He stares at her. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You have no idea, do you, Katniss.”

 

“Of what?”

 

He strains for the right words; none of them seem to do the situation justice. “Of the… the _effect_ you have. On me, on everyone.”

 

“What do you mean?” she whispers, leaning in just a little bit.

 

“Katniss,” he says in a slow, deliberate tone, leaving no room for her to argue. “I’ll never not want to be with you. You’re not an inconvenience. You’re not a burden. You’re my best friend, all right? _I love you_.”

 

“I love you, too,” she murmurs. “You sacrifice so much for me. What did I ever do to get you?”

 

He snorts and leans back, spearing a cube of melon and shoving it into his mouth. “If anyone’s got the better end of the deal here, it’s me, a thousand times over.

 

She shakes her head. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

 

“I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

 

She goes back to her meal without another word. They eat in between bits of random conversation, the sort of light, easy banter that has always punctuated their friendship: about his art, her volunteer work with the local wildlife organisation, his brothers, Prim, the bakery and anything and everything else in between. He can read her silences as well as her words, she can lock onto his eyes and know what he’s thinking in any one moment.

 

“Want to come sit over the edge?” she asks him when they’re finished.

 

“Uh, no?” He’s not a crazy person.

 

“Come on.” She tugs his arm and drags him closer. “I promise I won’t let you fall.”

 

She swings her legs over the side, letting them hang three-hundred feet above the next layer of solid ground.

 

Fucking _terrifying_.

 

“Peeta,” she calls back to him in a low, soothing, encouraging tone. She turns her head and shoots him a smile made magic by the starlight. “Sit next to me, please.”

 

She offers him a hand; what else can he do but take it? She keeps hold of it until he plonks himself down beside her, keeping his own legs curled up under him, like it would help should the ground give out from beneath them.

 

It’s the perfect evening: not too warm, not too cool. Crickets chirp around them and a faint breeze rustles the edges of the leaves, blanketing out the sounds of the town below. Katniss tips her head against his shoulder. He sighs, tilting his head to rest against her hair and take a deep breath of her in. It’s perfect. Every little thing about the night, the moment, the infinity spread out before them, has all led up to this:

 

He’s going to tell her. God knows he’s wanted to tell her for years, since the moment he learned what it meant to want another person, to need their presence, to value them above yourself, to love them with the sort of unconditional adoration he thought only existed in books and movies.

 

He’s going to tell her. But not today. Because the moment is too perfect to shatter.

 

“What’s the matter?” she asks, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him.

 

“Nothing. I just… I wish I could freeze this moment and live in it forever?” He cringes as his voice lifts, turning the statement into a question.

 

“What, this moment? When there’s so many other worthy moments?” She smiles at him and leans back on his shoulder. “I’ll allow it,” she whispers.

 

“Oh, you will, will you?” he teases.

 

“Yeah.” She looks up at him again, something serious, not so indulgent or teasing in her eyes. “I will.”

 

She settles back against his arm and shifts as she lets out a deep breath. Peeta could almost fall asleep out here, between Katniss’ warmth and the cool breeze, the rhythmic whisper of the trees and the faraway, sleepy sounds of the town below. He almost does; his eyes become heavy as a faint sense of panic builds within him _because this is not the place to fall asleep regardless of how comfortable he is —_

 

“Shit, Peeta! Wake up!” Katniss shoots to her feet and darts around their picnic site, gathering up all she can carry in her slender arms. He watches on with his eyes blown wide. In that moment, he’s never been more confused.

 

“What, Katniss… what’s —”

 

“It’s nearly midnight!”

 

“What?” He looks down at his watch, and sure enough: 11.56pm.

 

“Shit, I didn’t realise.” Peeta stands and gathers up the rug in his arms.

 

“I promised I’d be back by midnight so Mum could go in for the night shift,” she moans. “Damn it, what if she’s already gone? What if Prim’s alone?”

 

Objectively, Peeta knows Katniss’ mother has improved by leaps and bounds over the past year. That note from Prim’s school about her small, lacklustre lunches — even when Katniss was giving her sister everything they had to spare — and sometimes dirty clothes that Katniss couldn’t always keep on top of seemed to jolt her out of her fog of grief, if in bursts. But he understands Katniss’ wariness, more than she knows.

 

“I’m sure she hasn’t left yet,” Peeta soothes her. “Look, if we leave now, we can make it back to your place by ten past. What mischief could a sleepy Prim possibly get up to in ten minutes?”

 

Katniss looks out over the cliff, no doubt trying to find her house way out on the edge of town and see through the walls to her little sister.

 

“Call Gale to watch her for a bit if it makes you feel better,” he suggests, biting back a grimace; even the name feels like a bad taste in his mouth. “You know he’d swing by if you asked.”

 

Katniss shakes her head. “It should be fine, but we need to leave now.” She slides into the passenger seat of his car, reaching behind her with limber arms to drop the basket in the back seat. Peeta tosses the paper plates and cups in the nearby trashcan, stows the blanket in the trunk and jogs around to the drivers’ seat. He makes it back to Katniss’ in record time; they even pass her mother’s car on the way, turning up towards the hospital.

 

He pulls up to the driveway and kills the engine. Katniss seems in no hurry to leave the car, despite her earlier rush.

 

“Shouldn’t you get in?” he whispers, as though Prim can hear them between the layers of wall and steel.

 

“Yeah, I guess.” She undoes her seatbelt, but still doesn’t move. “I just…” She sighs and stares down at her hands. “Thank you, Peeta, for tonight, and everything else you do for me. I had the best graduation party with you.”

 

He grins at her. “Me, too. You don’t wish you’d gone to Madge’s instead?”

 

She shakes her head. “Not even a little bit.”

 

She leans in and kisses his cheek, lingering on a spot just on the corner of his lips, then steals away from the car like a thief in the night.

 

He watches her until she unlocks the door and disappears, waits until the light of her bedroom above him turns on before starting the ignition and rolling back down the drive, a wide, terminal grin on his face as he speeds back home.

**XXX**

“Peeta!” she exclaims, voice tinny through the phone. “This campus is amazing!”

 

He grins and holds his phone to his ear with his shoulder as he fills the cabinet with fresh cupcakes and cookies. They’re always quiet come two in the afternoon, but the primary schools will let out soon, and there’ll be a clamour of hungry schoolkids fighting for sweets; the bakery is the first point of call.

 

“Tell me about it?” He saw the brochures when Katniss was putting in her applications, but they only seemed to show the things they thought people wanted to see, forced diversity and fake smiles, not the character of the campus itself.

 

“Um…” He can hear a light whoosh of wind as she turns in a circle. “It’s a really nice combination of old and new. Some really heavy-duty concrete buildings but lots of pretty, more modern-looking ones, too. Lots of grass, heaps of tall trees. So many cafés and they all smell wonderful, and heaps of food trucks, and there’s so many different people. And it’s huge, Peeta! At least as long as Panem is wide.”

 

He smiles. “And you really like it? You’re happy?”

 

“I think I am, Peeta. I mean, I bad for leaving Prim, but —”

 

“Don’t worry about Prim,” he tells her. “I’ll look out for her while you’re not here.”

 

“I know you will.” She sighs. “You could paint here, Peeta. When the light falls through the trees just right it’s so pretty.”

 

“It does sound pretty. Maybe you should paint it. Mail it to me. I could have my very own Katniss Everdeen original.”

 

“No, I mean…” She lets out a frustrated breath, and he knows they’ve had this conversation before.  “You should be _here_. Learning. Painting. The art department is supposed to be brilliant, and you are so, so talented, Peeta. I know you’re really good at what you do in the bakery, but I don’t want to see you throw it all away.”

 

Peeta shifts the phone to his other ear. “Katniss, we talked —” The bell above the door rings and in gallops a pair of children with their mother. They bolt straight for the cabinets and press their noses up against the glass. “Sorry. I’ve got customers. I have to go.”

 

“Oh. All right.” She’s quiet for a moment, then: “Hey, Peeta?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I miss you.”

 

He sighs and leans back on the counter, closing his eyes just for a moment. “I miss you, too.”

**XXX**

_Age 19_

His mind comes back to him first. Or he thinks it does. Everything’s a blur, cramming one moment into the next until he can’t tell his left from right, his up from down.

 

There’s no pain, just a sweet sort of numbness, and a throbbing sort of undercurrent running through him and ending somewhere near his left knee.

 

Something pulls him forward, through the haze keeping him lost in this bizarre dreamland. A soft beacon of light off in the distance that Peeta can’t help but follow.

 

A soft, warm hand squeezes around his own. The touch is familiar, comforting. He tries to squeeze back but he can’t manage it yet.

 

But perhaps he manages something, because he hears a voice, too, but he can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s low and soft, though, calm and constant. It’s nice, he decides. He could almost drift right back to sleep to the sound of it.

 

But something deep inside him tells him that would be the wrong thing to do, however much he’d like to.

 

So, he staggers through. It’s hard, like wading through quicksand. Every step he takes feels like it’s catching on a thousand pairs of hands that want to hold him to the spot. He’s close to breaching the edge of this hazy world, so close to touching that soft spot of light, but he’s so, so exhausted.

 

He gets closer. The words around him start to take shape…

 

_“…wake up, Peeta, please…”_

 

He knows that voice as well as his own.

 

It takes everything he has in him to crack open his right eye, his left. The world is shapeless, nothing but startling white he blinks back against immediately, stinging tears run hot down his cheek.

 

“Ka---iss?” His voice is groggy, faded, more the skeleton of a voice than the complete thing, but she hears him, comes in closer, kisses his cheek and temple and eye and nose over and over again. He sighs and melts back into his pillows.

 

“Peeta!” He can feel her crying, too; spots of damp land on his cheek and run down his face like they’re his own tears. “Oh, God, Peeta. You’re awake!”

 

The warmth around his hands is wrenched away, taking with it his last tether to wakefulness. As he falls back under, he hears Katniss cry out for a nurse, a doctor, anyone. Footsteps crash towards his room, but he’s out again before he can blink.

 

**XXX**

 

It’s much easier, the next time consciousness tugs at him, even if it does still feel like he’s beating at the doors of hell to reach it. His eyes aren’t anywhere near as heavy, but everything’s so bright. So white. He blinks once, twice. Squints against those boiling tears. Still feels that throb ebbing its way down his leg only to stop in its tracks, as though the pain has nowhere else to go.

 

Katniss is beside him, haloed like an angel, smiling like he’s the best thing she’s seen all day. Good God, she’s stunning. Is he dead? Is this Heaven?

 

“Peeta?” she whispers. She’s got heavy, dark bags under her eyes, and her skin looks grey. When was the last time she slept?

 

He clears his throat; his mouth tastes like death. “Hi.”

 

She laughs; it’s a wet sound, like she’s been crying. “Hi, yourself.”

 

“Where am I?”

 

“You’re in a hospital, Peeta.” Ah. Not Heaven. “In the Capitol. Do you remember? You were in an accident.”

 

He tries to push himself up, falters when a wave of dizziness crashes into him, robbing him of every meagre speck of strength he has. The room turns blurry, spinning like a carousel as bile crawls, burning, up his throat. Katniss is over him in a second, easing him back down again, smoothing his matted hair back from his slick forehead.

 

“What… happened?” His arms are heavy as he lifts his hands to rub his eyes. The jostle disturbs a tube in his arm, a needle on the back of his hand. He follows the line of it to a clear bag suspended above his head.

 

“Painkillers,” Katniss tells him. “There was some worry about infection when you first came in — you were on antibiotics, too — but they think it’ll all be okay now. So just painkillers.”

 

“Antibiotics?” The word is like molasses in his mouth, too many syllables pouring out slowly. “How… how bad…”

 

She shushes him and keeps up swiping her thumb over his temple. He just about falls asleep again under her touch.

 

“Do… do you remember driving up here? To deliver a cake for a wedding?”

 

He closes his eyes. Bright lights and a burst of flame. A deafening crash and the frantic middle notes of _Bat Out of Hell._

 

“There was a drunk driving on the wrong side of the road. He’d been driving like that for a while, the police said, making people swerve off the road, but your van…” She trails off, her breath hitching. “Your van flipped into a ditch. You were trapped there for hours before someone called the ambulance and got you freed.” A sob escapes her. “I thought you were going to die,”

 

He’s not sure what he can say to that; he doesn’t remember any of it.

 

“Where’s m’ dad?” he asks instead.

 

“He’s gone back to your place to pick some things up for you. Clothes and books and things since you’ll… ah, probably be here for… you know, a little while, at least. He should be back soon, though.”

 

Peeta narrows his eyes at her; she’s always been so easy to read, but now it’s like she’s speaking another language. “Why would I be here for a while?”

 

Katniss stares around the room, her gaze fixed on some crappy print on the wall of an ocean scene he guesses is meant to be relaxing. “Peeta, there’s something else—”

 

“Peeta!” His father stands in the doorway, his arms weighed down by overnight bags and plastic takeout containers. Something in Peeta breaks at the sight; of his harried, overworked father brought to tears just by looking at him. He drops everything and lunges to Peeta’s side, working his arms up and around the tubes and bandaging to pull Peeta into a firm hug.

 

Katniss slides out of her seat and slinks to the corner, watching on with a smile.

 

“Thank God you’re awake, son. Thank God… They weren’t sure… It’s been _weeks_ …”

                                                                                                                       

“What happened, Dad?”

 

He hesitates. “Peeta…”

 

Louder. “What happened, Dad?”

 

“How much did Katniss tell you?” His dad looks over at Katniss, whose mouth is pressed in a thin, taut line. She shakes her head and falls back against the wall.

 

“N’ much. Just… that I was in a crash… and…”

 

In the corner, Katniss sniffs and clutches a tissue to her nose.

 

“Wha… what happened?”

 

His father squeezes his eyes shut, lets out an old, rattling breath. He takes Peeta’s free hand and squeezes tight. “Son, you lost your leg.”

 

There’s a disconnect between the words and the reality that Peeta can’t work out. It can’t… it can’t be _real_ , can it?

 

“They had to remove it just above your knee. You’d… you’d been crushed, son, there was no saving it.”

 

His father sounds like he’s talking under water. Katniss’ crying feels a million miles away. It’s like he’s only observing his reality, not taking part in it.

 

He looks down at his body, follows the line of his right leg to his upturned foot and the end of the bed. The foot has no twin. There’s no hint of anything until about halfway up.

 

At least that explains the weird pains that seemed to get lost. It seems the least of his worries now as white dots blanket his vision, crowding in until that flash of white turns to nothing.

**XXX**

“You’ve got to go slower, Peeta!”

 

“I’m trying.” Peeta grits his teeth and braces his hands on the bars at his sides. Sweat beads at his brow as he inches his prosthetic forward. It still feels so foreign, leading his strides with what’s left of his knee and not his foot. Not being able to feel the prosthetic meet the ground still throws him every time, and he doubts the padded, uneven floor helps his cause at all.

 

He moves his good leg forward before the prosthetic is solid against the foam flooring. With a grunt Peeta feels the earth give out beneath him and topples to the ground, knocking his shoulder against the bars on the way down.

 

 He punches the ground with a resounding smack. “Fuck this!”

 

Rehab therapy is hell. He’s lost count of the amount of times he’s fallen, tripped, stumbled or otherwise made a complete dick of himself. He’s covered in more bruises now than he was just after the accident, and just a single, worthless hour of this is enough to make him sleep the day away.

 

“Peeta,” his father says on a sigh, but he’s long given up chastising Peeta about his language.

 

“I can’t do it!”

 

“Yes, you can, Peeta! You just need to —”

 

“Need to what? Try harder? It’s already really fucking hard, Dad!”

 

“He’d do it if Katniss was standing at the other end,” Rye mumbles, smirking.

 

“What was that, Rye?”

 

Rye clears his throat, sets down the dirt bike magazine that had been holding his attention. “I said, you’d probably do it if Katniss was standing at the other end.”

 

“Boys.” Their father diffuses the situation with the one word. “No more, all right? From both of you.” He points to Rye: “Rye, shut up or leave if you aren’t going to do or say anything constructive. And Peeta? Pick yourself up off the floor and _try again_.”

**XXX**

_Age 21_

The year is passing him by in a haze of drunken birthday celebrations he only half remembers. First was his twenty-first, followed by Katniss’, then Finnick’s, Delly’s, Thom’s and Annie’s, But the drunken rite of passage that is the twenty-first birthday party at a bar is fast starting to wear thin. And they’re a week out of Christmas now, too! After tonight he never wants to set eyes on another bottle of booze again.

 

But if it means Katniss is home for the holidays, dressed up in her black skinny jeans that make her ass look perfect, pressed up against him around the tiny tables they share with everyone else, he can’t bring himself to complain too much.

 

Plus, it’s the only time all his friends are ever in one place anymore. Everyone’s so busy with their own things now: college, marriage, work, travel. Sometimes Peeta thinks he’s the idiot of the group, staying in their small hometown on purpose.

 

They crowd around three of Abernathy’s tiny, sticky tables pushed together, pressed up tight against one another like sardines in a can. Orders to the hapless waitress standing off to the side rise and overlap one another: _nachos with extra salsa, no salsa, hold the guac, double the guac, no sour cream, extra chillies, sour cream on the side, don’t get nachos get pizza instead_. It’s a wonder the waitress can decipher enough to jot down in her notebook.

 

Tonight, they’re drinking and eating their weight in beer and peanuts and corn chips to the last of their little group becoming legal. Madge, prim and proper as always, sips at her brew and scrunches her face with each taste.

 

“I don’t think she’s a beer girl,” Gale notes, grinning. He slings an arm around his new girlfriend and tugs her close. Only the shy, joyous smile that tugs at Madge’s lips keeps Peeta from rolling his eyes. He’s never learned to tolerate Gale Hawthorne, not even for Madge’s sake, but the feeling is entirely mutual.

 

“I like wine,” Madge protests. Gale scoffs.

 

“You don’t come to Abernathy’s for wine!”

 

Peeta rolls his eyes as Madge tugs her boyfriend down by his collar, whispering too loudly to be discreet that maybe they should pick up a bottle of their own and head on back to her apartment.

 

“The hell you are!” Finnick booms over the table, right in Peeta’s ear. He can’t imagine how poor Annie’s faring, right on Finnick’s lap (“We’re being economical with our limited space!”). “We all came together tonight to get the birthday girl drunk! No way are you skipping out on us for a night of freaky, awkward fumbling with the Gale-friend.”

 

Peeta stifles his snicker as Gale goes red around the edges. The guy’s way too easy. A fact Peeta takes advantage nowhere near as often as he’d like.

 

Madge flushes a soft, Disney princess sort of blush and takes up her beer again, taking another sip and scrunching her face.

 

The food arrives with a convoy of waiters. A steady stream of them drifts out from the kitchen, each holding a different dish of nachos of every possible iteration and a single, lone pizza. Tiny dishes of sour cream, salsa and guacamole follow, peppering the table to make sure no one can lean forward on their elbows. Arms reaching in press Katniss closer to his side, drowning out the smell of beer and burnt food with pine and mint.

 

It the first time, too, that they’re all meeting Thom’s latest girlfriend, a small, red-haired with pointed, delicate features like a fox that he met online. Peeta missed her name when introductions were being tossed out (and has been calling her Foxface ever since) but she seems nice enough, and Thom is more enamoured with her than Peeta’s ever seen him with another girl.

 

“Seriously, Peet. You should make an account,” Thom tells him, for what feels like the thousandth time, as he slings an arm around Foxface’s shoulder and draws her close to nuzzle her cheek. “Even if it’s not for a girlfriend. There’s thousands of girls on there just looking for something casual.”

 

Peeta takes a long sip of his beer, sending a sidelong glance at Katniss whose eyes are downcast, focused on fingers twisting and tearing at a napkin on the table. “Nah,” he says. “I’m not looking for anything right now.”  


Thom rolls his eyes. “You’re never looking for anything. What happened with that girl I tried to set you up with? Glimmer?”

 

“That was her real name?” Peeta can’t stifle his laugh this time.

 

Thom groans and turns back to Foxface. There might as well not be anyone else in the bar for how well he’s blocking the rest of them out.

 

“He’s got a point, you know,” Katniss says, looking up at him, her expression inscrutable. “You haven’t had a girlfriend in years.”

 

“I’ve had girlfriends,” he retorts. Casual, a-month-tops girlfriends, but girlfriends all the same. All with some combination of olive skin, dark hair and grey eyes, but never the trio together. All three would be… Peeta thinks it would be like treason, betrayal.

 

“Name the last relationship you’ve had that lasted more than a week,” she challenges him, her eyes sharp and narrowed.

 

“Name the last boyfriend you had ever?” he volleys back. She’s been on the receiving end of so much male attention over the years, but one consistency he can always count on is that she’ll always say no. When he asks why, he never gets a straight answer.

 

“Wait.” Foxface’s beady eyes dart between him and Katniss, cutting in before either of them can speak again. “So you two aren’t together?”

 

Peeta glances down at Katniss. Where he takes the question with his signature good humour, Katniss’ scowl becomes even more deep-set, and her fingers slay the napkin with even more vigour.

 

“No,” Katniss says, pulling away from him before he can even move. “We’re not.”

 

It’s a strange sense of conflict Peeta feels whenever someone makes the mistake. That they are close and comfortable enough with each other that strangers can draw their however erroneous conclusions makes him puff up like a peacock. That he always has to deny it stabs at him a little more and more each time; a sort of death by a thousand cuts drawn out over the course of fifteen years.

 

“We’re just good friends,” Peeta adds. He swigs back the last of his drink and sets the glass back down. “On that awkward note, I’m going to get another drink. You want anything, Katniss?”

 

She shakes her head and picks at her nachos. “No, I’m all right, thanks.”

 

“I’ll give you a hand, Peet,” Finnick says, shifting Annie off his lap and standing and darting to the bar before Peeta can tell him no.

  
It starts the second Peeta reaches him: “You guys realise you’d never have to have a conversation like that again if you just cut the crap and got together, right?”

 

Peeta sighs. “Shut up, Finn.”

 

“I mean, it’s been, what, two decades you’ve had a thing for her?”

 

“Sixteen years.” Give or take the years he thought girls were icky. As though it makes a difference.

 

“See? I don’t know what’s holding you back anymore, Peet. I’m fucking baffled.”

 

Peeta puffs his cheeks and blows out an exasperated breath. “Don’t make me regret telling you things.”

 

“No, seriously.” And he does look serious, for once in his life. Not a trace of butt-dimple to be seen. “What’s stopping you?”

 

Peeta sighs again and looks back at their table. Katniss has her head tipped back, laughing at something Annie must have said. Even under the dingy, faded yellow and orange lights, she still something else; as bright and shining and radiant as the sun. And about as dangerous to stare at, too. He shakes his head and turns back towards the bar, raising a hand to get the bartender’s attention. A futile effort in a sea of women.

 

“Nothing. And everything.”

 

“Do you ever plan on saying anything? Like, _ever_?”

 

Peeta lets out a breath, stares at the frayed laces of his shoes. “I don’t even know. I thought I would, but I’m not sure anymore.”

 

Finnick laughs, but there’s no humour in it. “Fucking hell, Peeta. You know it’s a thousand bullets dodged that she hasn’t come back for break with some smarmy college asshole clinging to her, right?”

 

Irrational, stupid anger surges through him at the thought. Finnick thinks Peeta hasn’t already thanked every lucky star he has for that? Every second he spends with Katniss he’s grateful she’s still single, even as he rages at the entire straight male college population for being unable to see Katniss the way he does.

 

Finnick taps his fingers along the bar top. Peeta can’t hear the tune, but he can guess it’s the same one Finnick always taps out when he’s bored: the theme from the old Peanuts cartoons, of all things. “What if I told you I overheard Kat talking to Annie about you once?”

 

Peeta sighs and shoves up the sleeves of his shirt, wipes away the sweat beading along his upper lip. It’s way too fucking hot inside; funny when it has to be approaching freezing outside. “I’m in no mood for hypotheticals, Finn.”

 

Finnick huffs. “Fine. So, true story, there was this day after Annie and I got back from our honeymoon that Katniss came over, to chat about whatever sort of girly shit it is they talk about, I’ve got no idea. Anyway, I was making them drinks in the kitchen, so granted I didn’t hear everything. But I know they were talking about you, and I know I heard Kat say she loves you.”

 

“She says that all the time!” Peeta retorts. “I tell her, too. We’re best friends!”

 

“So maybe you should stop and think about that! She doesn’t tell any of her other friends she loves them. Do you? Pretty sure I’d remember you whipping the L word in my direction.”

 

Peeta grits his teeth and says nothing.

 

“I’m just saying you need to think about it, Peet. You and Katniss are —”

 

“— Are what?” Peeta says, tired. “You said yourself, you didn’t hear everything. Whatever you did hear you must’ve heard wrong. She doesn’t want me, she never has.”

 

“Hey.” He takes Peeta by the shoulder and holds him in place. “This defeatist, woe-is-me shit looks terrible on you. Always has.”

 

Peeta sighs, “Let me go, Finnick.”

 

He does, and shoves him back while he’s at it. Peeta’s prosthetic joint rolls and gives out. He catches himself on a stranger before he falls to the ground, apologising as he steadies himself.

 

Once he’s stable again: “What the fuck was that for?” Peeta yells, shoving Finnick back. The people around them spread wider, offering room, watching on with wide, fascinated eyes.

 

“My oldest friend being a complete and total jackass!”

 

“What the fuck is it to you?” Peeta explodes, pent-up rage leaving him in a loud, wild burst. “Why do you even care? You married your sweetheart right out of school, and what? We’re all meant to follow your shining example? You’re talking out of your ass, Finnick. You’ve got no idea what you’re going on about!”

 

“What the hell is going on here?” Katniss appears at his side, arms crossed, brow furrowed, jaw clenched. Annie sidles along moments later, moving to Finnick’s side and lacing her fingers with his. Peeta glances at Katniss’ fingers, finding them digging tight into her forearms.

 

“Seriously?” she says, when neither him nor Finnick speaks. “You’ve been friends now for how long? What the hell’s gotten into you both?”

 

“You ought to talk to your boy, Katniss,” Finnick says — sneers, more like. “He’s got a few things he’d like to tell you.”

 

Peeta lunges forward. “Fuck you, asshole.”

 

“Okay.” Katniss stands in between them, settling a hand on his chest. Peeta stares at it as she steers him backwards through the bar.

 

“Why are you so fucking determined to be miserable?” Finnick yells after them.

 

“Don’t even think about it,” Katniss hisses when he attempts another mad lunge for Finnick’s infuriating, dimpled butt-face.

 

He lets her lead him out, looking back once over at the three tables shoved together that was Madge’s birthday party. Everyone is sitting, waiting, watching him with wide, shocked eyes. He can’t blame them; he’s a natural pacifist, more likely to be patching up an argument than starting one. Finnick is still at the bar, Annie wrapped around him and whispering in his ear, but glaring at him still, too.

 

“Anything you want to talk about?” Katniss asks him once she’s snatched is coat off its hook by the door and thrown it at him. He shrugs it on as they clear the door into the icy, refreshing night air, streets lit with the golden fairy-glow of Christmas lights.

 

He shakes his head and shoves his hands deep in his pockets to warm his fingers. “Not really.”

 

She nods, but he knows he doesn’t have her even halfway to convinced. They walk on for a few minutes, their steps slow and tentative on the slippery ground. He’s gotten pretty good with his prosthetic over the years, but he reckons it’s got more to do with his excessive caution than anything else.

 

“Okay,” she says after a long, cold moment. “So, I know you wouldn’t hit Finnick without a really, really good reason. I also know that you’ve only had the one drink, so you aren’t drunk or even tipsy just yet. So, what I’m failing to get here is, why? Why on earth would you and Finnick fight in the middle of a bar during Madge’s birthday party?”

 

Peeta shrugs, hunching his neck further into the collar of his coat. “We just had a bit of a…disagreement.”

 

“About what?”

 

He shakes his head and scowls, but it in no way rivals hers. “Nothing. He’s being delusional.”

 

“Didn’t sound delusional.” She links her arm with his as they walk. “Was it about me?”

 

He stops, letting her arm slide out from under his. “What makes you say that?”

 

“I heard my name. Several times. The bar’s loud, but you guys were louder.” She stops a little ahead of him and looks back. “What was going on, Peeta?”

 

He kicks at a pebble on the ground, listening to it skitter away. “Nothing. He thought he heard something that you said when you were over at his and Annie’s one day, I think he was wrong.”

 

He chances a glance up at her face, but she doesn’t look caught out or afraid. Just confused.

 

“What did I say?”

 

He groans. “It doesn’t matter what you said or didn’t say, Katniss. Finnick heard wrong, all right?”

 

“And, what? You felt like you had to defend my honour or something?” 

 

He sighs and rubs at his eyes. He feels like the world’s biggest idiot, and it all sounds so stupid when she puts it like that.

 

“Peeta…” She trails off, stepping forward to take his hand. “If you felt the need to do what you did, it probably seemed like a big deal —” It was. It was the absolute biggest deal there is. “— but I can pretty much guarantee it was nothing.” A tiny spear of pain stabs through him, even though he knows it’s stupid; she still doesn’t even know what they were talking about. “Besides, Finnick’s been talking out his ass since I met him.”

 

Peeta laughs and squeezes her hand. “True. The first conversation I had with him he was making fun of teachers’ names.”

 

“See? Ass.”

 

“His face looks like an ass.”

 

Katniss laughs. “Those dimples are ridiculous. Annie seems okay with them, though.”

 

He sighs, watching his breath puff out on the frigid air. “I’ll apologise to Finnick tomorrow.”

 

“You sure? I can go on hating him with you for a little longer if you like.”

 

He laughs and pulls her in for a hug. “And that’s why you’re my best friend. But I’m still going to say sorry. To Annie as well; probably wasn’t any fun for her, either.”

 

She nods against his shoulder. “Probably a good idea.”

 

“And, uh…” He runs a hand through his hair. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry to you, too.”

 

She shakes her head. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Not to me, at least.” She looks up and down the chilly street, towards the cappuccino strip lined with warm lights and even warmer scents. “Let’s go pick a café. I think we need a hot chocolate.”

 

With her cool hand still wrapped around his, he waves her on. “Lead the way.”

**XXX**

_Age 23_

Peeta stands tallest and claps loudest as Katniss strides across the stage, shakes hands with her head of school, and collects her diploma, though Prim might give him a run for his money.

 

His grin spreads even wider when Katniss looks out over the crowd and meets his gaze, smiling her usual shy smile while her cheeks flush from the added attention. The smile turns to a scowl when he sticks his fingers into his mouth and lets loose an obnoxious whistle pitched so high-pitched it drowns out the applause.

 

An hour later, the ceremony crawls to its close. He and Prim weave their way through the tight crowd of proud families and friends and find Katniss pressed against the back wall. She spots them over the crowd, and the look on her face melts into stark relief.

 

“Katniss!” Prim leaps through the remaining crows, squeaks, and throws herself at her sister. “Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!”

 

Katniss smiles and rolls her eyes at him over her sister’s head. “Thanks, Little Duck.”

 

“Mum said to say congratulations, too.”

 

The look on Katniss’ face sours, but repairs itself just as quick as Prim pulls herself away.

 

She gives a weak smile. “I’ll head over and visit her when we go back tomorrow, all right?”

 

Prim beams. “I’ll tell her, so she knows to stay awake.” Her own phone jingles in her pocket. Prim fishes it out of her pocket, and her smile turns dreamy. “It’s Rory,” she says. “I’m just gonna call him back, all right? I’ll meet you guys outside.” She darts away before either of them can say anything, leaving behind little more than a puff of sweet perfume.

 

“I don’t know how I feel about Prim texting boys,” he says as he watches her flounce towards the door like she’s skipping over clouds.

 

Katniss gives him a wry smile. “I feel wrong.”

 

He grins. “You would.”                                    

 

She grins back at him, and he’s used to the stutter of his heartbeat at the sight of it by now; he’d be more worried if he didn’t feel it. He opens his arms for her and she tumbles into them without hesitation, leaning her head against his chest and letting out a long, weary sigh.

 

He kisses the top of her head and inhales her calming scent of mint and pine. “Congratulations, Katniss.”

 

She nods against him. “Thank you.”

 

“I’m sorry about your mum,” he whispers.

 

He feels her shrug. “It’s fine. It’s not like I was expecting her to come anyway.”

 

He holds her a little tighter, like he could banish any bad feeling from her forever. “It shouldn’t matter if you were expecting her or not; she’s your mother.” He sighs, goes back in time to the last time he saw his own mother. Has it really been a decade since he’s seen her high, blonde bun? Or heard her shrill, hawkish shriek stalking him around the halls? One of the best things that happened to the Mellark family was his mother leaving without a word, even as she left behind a complete and total clusterfuck for his father to deal with alone. But he wonders sometimes if he should advocate as hard for her presence in his life as he does for Katniss’ mother to be in hers. Or are both their mothers’ actions inexcusable in their own ways?

 

Katniss shakes her head, presses herself even closer. He can feel the thump of her heart between them, almost as quick, and in perfect sync with his own. “Really, Peeta. It’s fine. You and Prim are more than enough.”

 

He gives her a last squeeze before letting her go, but she doesn’t step out of his space. One of her arms stays wrapped around his waist, and the way she’s staring at him… it’s like he’s one of her specimens under a microscope, and she’s searching him for all his hidden secrets.

 

He coughs. “So, are we done here?”

 

Katniss nods. “Yep. All done.”

 

“Are you hungry or anything, Katniss?” Peeta asks. “We could go get a late dinner before we go?”

 

Katniss shakes her head. “It’s late. I kind of just want to head back to my apartment and go to sleep, so we can hit the road early tomorrow.”

 

He laughs. “You’ve been living in the city how long again? How’s nine late?”

 

“You can take the girl out of town, I guess…”

 

“I’ll make you something when we get back to your place, if you want?”

 

She smiles and reaches out to take his hand. “I’ve missed your cooking.”

 

“If I had to rely on your cooking for four years, I’d miss my stuff, too.”

 

“More like four years of take-out, but yeah, pretty much.”

 

They walk hand-in-hand to the exit, dodging her former classmates and an old roommate Katniss hasn’t seen since her first year. When they reach the doors, a gust of cold wind hits them like a slap to the face. Peeta stuffs his free hand in his pocket and leads them out into the parking lot, towards where Prim is leaning alongside his new Corolla, giggling away into the night.

 

“So,” Katniss says. “I’ve got some news.”

 

“Have you found a job?” She called him a few months ago in a panic, supposedly lost for options regarding what her degree would do for her.

 

“No.” She scowls, and he laughs. “Something else.”

 

“Let’s have it, then.”

 

“I’m coming back home. To Panem.”

 

“Yeah.” He laughs again. “I know. I’m taking you back for a visit tomorrow.”

 

“No, not for a visit. Permanently.”

 

His strides slow to a crawl. His free hand balls into a tight, white-knuckled fist. His heart kicks up a frantic rhythm against the cramped confines of his chest.

 

But it’s not dread or fear seizing his heart and making it skip its beats.

 

“Seriously?”

 

She nods. “Seriously.”

 

For a moment, it’s like his brain can’t comprehend the statement. “You’re coming back home?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“To Panem?”

 

“Yes, Peeta! I, Katniss, am coming back home, to Panem, indefinitely. What’s so weird about that? Did you really think I’d never come back?”

 

He’s not sure what he thought would happen after she graduated.

 

“I guess… I just thought you’d go where the jobs are. You know, stay in the city or something.”

 

“There are jobs in Panem, you know.”

 

“Yeah, but not any in your field,” he points out. “Not many people in Panem need an environmental scientist.”

 

“God, Peeta, what the hell’s wrong with you?” She stops, scowls. “I thought you’d be happy.”

 

He sighs, tugs her close, presses a soft kiss to her temple. “I am happy, Katniss. So happy. I’ve been missing you for four years. I guess I just want to make sure you’re happy, too.”

 

She squeezes his hand and shoots him that soft, secret smile. All at once, he feels calmer than he has in years. “I am.”

 

**XXX**

 

_Age 25_

 

Saturday nights with Katniss have always been Netflix and Take-Out night.

 

Together they’ve rattled through the Marvel back catalogue, lost their shit over _Stranger Things_ , worked through _American Horror Story_ and downed their weight in egg rolls along the way. Despite the tradition’s consistency in his life, there’s still a little part of him — a huge part of him — that feels like an insecure teenager every time he mounts the steps to Katniss’ apartment, as though this time will be the time:

 

The time she sees right through him.

 

It’s kind of dumb, when he thinks about. They’ve been best friends for two decades. He has a key to her apartment, and an open invitation to walk on in and help himself whenever he likes. He’s offered her the same, too — arriving home to Katniss passed out on his sofa isn’t a rare occurrence, and it’s his absolute favourite way to come home. But every time, without fail, Peeta raises his hand to her door and knocks.

 

He smiles and listens to the scuffle of movement on the other side: papers fluttering, glass clinging and thumps of unidentifiable objects meeting new surfaces. It’s not long before Katniss pulls the door open, in all her sweats-wearing, messy-haired, fresh-faced glory.

 

She knocks the air out of his lungs. Every single time.

 

She gives him a wry look and crosses her arms. “Peeta, you know you can just come in, right?”

 

Peeta smiles; she’s told him that more times than he could count over the years. Not once has he ever taken her up on it. He’s not sure he can.

 

“I know,” he says, stepping over the threshold. He wraps an arm around her shoulder and draws her in for a brief hug, sighing when she presses her face into his neck and squeezes back. When he pulls away, he hands over the bag of Chinese food he collected before arriving, and smiles when she buries her nose in it.

 

“Oh, God, that smells amazing,” she murmurs. “Did you get the honey chicken?”

 

“When have I ever not gotten the honey chicken?” he deadpans.

 

The corner of her lip turns up. “True. Bowls or containers?”

 

“Containers. I think we’re old enough to be trusted not to make a mess, right?”

 

Katniss laughs, a strange, nervous sound that sets him on edge at once. He quirks a brow at her but doesn’t say anything. He’s learned the hard way over the years that Katniss can’t be rushed.

 

“I’m not sure I’m up for the delicate art of eating noodles like a civilised person tonight.” She takes the bags to the kitchen and sets them down on the bench. “You sure you don’t want a bowl?” she asks as she reaches up on tip-toes for her cabinet, but she’s a scant inch too short to close the gap.

 

He saunters up behind her and sets a hand on her hip to keep her still, grinning at the sharp hitch of her breath as he reaches over her head to pluck the bowls from their shelf. The length of his body brushing against hers sends a surge like lightning through him, every single time. He has no idea why she doesn’t just move the bowls to a lower shelf — he has to get them down for her every time he comes over — but he’s not about to move them for her.

 

He goes to step away, but she sets a hand over his, keeping it against her hip and him against her. Peeta sucks in a breath, too afraid to let it loose. It’s like time stands still in her tiny kitchen, and one flicker of movement is all it’s going to take to shatter the clocks.

 

“Thank you,” she whispers.

 

“Don’t mention it,” he says against her ear. His lips brush against the shell of it, and he feels more than sees the shudder of Katniss’ body. “I don’t know why you still keep them up there. Hell, I’m not even sure how you get them back up there.”

 

“Too much effort to move everything around.” She chuckles — another stilted, awkward sound — and moves out from under his body, back to the food. She sets the bowls down and unclips the lids of the containers, pulling bits of this and that out and all but throwing them into her bowl. She plonks herself down on the sofa and queues up some show they’ve been working their way through for the past month, leaving him gaping in the kitchen.

 

He watches her jittery, clumsy movements from the corner of his eye: she fumbles with her chopsticks, loses balls of sticky honey chicken to the carpeted floor, sets her food down to re-braid her hair not even once, but twice.

 

Peeta can’t hold his tongue anymore. He sets down his own half-filled bowl and asks, “Are you all right, Katniss?”

 

She turns to look at him, blinks once, twice, three times, and sighs, defeated, but by what he can’t begin to guess. “Yes and no, I think.” She sets her bowl and her chopsticks down and shifts in her seat to face him head-on.

 

After opening and shutting her mouth so much she reminds him of one of those wind-up magnetic fishing games he played when he was a kid, she says, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

 

He furrows his brows as he lips turn down. He shuffles out from the kitchen and sits down beside her, meeting her gaze. “You can tell me anything, Katniss.”

 

“It’s not like it’s… you know, anything bad, or whatever,” she rambles. “But it is kind of a big deal, and …”

 

When she trails off, Peeta takes her hand and squeezes. The contact helps to quell his own rising fear. “What is it, Katniss?”

 

She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and gazes at him, her eyes the exact colour of the sky before a storm. “I’ve been offered a job.”

 

“That’s great!” he exclaims, and he means it, too, because he knows she hasn’t liked working with the local wildlife conservancy; they don’t even come close to matching her in passion for the local environment, and the tiny scale of the effort doesn’t come close to fulfilling Katniss’ needs or abilities. But still, a little flicker of hurt rises in him to know she never told him she was looking for something new. “I didn’t even know you were looking.”

 

“I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t, but then this came up, and I…” She smiles, but it’s a conflicted thing, all emotions at once. “It’s kind of far away.”

 

His stomach turns to ice. “How far?”

 

She takes a deep breath in, releases it, smiles a smile unlike any he’s seen from her before. “In Australia.”

 

His heart stops, shatters and snaps into a million irretrievable pieces. He drops her hands like they’re on fire, his fingers already flexing for something that isn’t there. Something that might as well be halfway across the world already.

 

“Australia,” he repeats, his voice dull and lifeless. “The Australia that’s over nine-thousand miles away. That Australia?”

 

She nods, but it’s stilted, jerky, more of a shudder than an affirmation. “That’s the one.”

 

He swallows, but it’s like there’s a wad of cotton balls caught in his throat. “What would you be doing?”

 

Her voice shakes as she says, “There’s this, uh, company, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. I’ll be a field ecologist with them at a reserve in rural Victoria, conducting research on different flora and fauna in the area. Tracking, surveying, that sort of thing.”

 

“Are you…” He swallows again, but fuck it all if that cotton ball just won’t budge. “Are you going to take it?”

 

She looks down at her hands, twisting and knotting in her lap. She already looks nine-thousand miles away. “I already have.”

 

Peeta stares down at the ground, counting the different colours he can see in the fibres. He gets to twelve before he comes back to himself. “Oh. I didn’t… you didn’t even tell me you applied for a job so far away.”

 

“I didn’t think there was any point.” She reaches between them and grasps his hands again, holding them fast in hers so he can’t escape, no matter how bad he wants to. She pulls him close, keeps him there, begs him with every way short of words to understand, but he’s not sure he can. “I never, not in a million years, thought they would even glace at my application — I’m here and they’re there! — but then they called and asked if I wanted to do a Skype interview with them… Peeta, believe me, I didn’t think I had a chance, but I got it and… and it’s… it’s a wonderful opportunity, Peeta. Hell, it’s unbelievable.”

 

He can’t deny that. “Yeah, it is.” He tries to smile, but it feels more like a strained grimace. He squeezes her hands in his, feels her pulse under his fingers, memorises its rhythm. “You always did like koalas.” She’d been close to obsessed with them after getting a koala keychain in the mail from an Australian pen-pal when she was nine.

 

She laughs, a wet, broken sound. “Yeah, I did. I mean, I do.”

 

“So, when do you leave?”

 

She bites at her lip; looks away like she can’t bear the sight of him. “At the end of the month. They’ll find a place to put me up. A dorm on site, maybe? I’m not too sure.”

 

So soon. Too soon. Peeta swallows back the sting of bile rising in his throat. “Oh.”

  
He isn’t sure what else there is to say.

 

“This is awesome for you.” He drops her hands and pulls her in close for a tight embrace, pressing his lips to the crown of her head and to her temple, running his hands down the length of her spine, feeling her shiver, and shivering back. The contact comes so free and easy, without fear or thought. He adores that about her, about _them_ , the comfort and the trust so freely given. “Congratulations, Katniss. I’m so, so proud of you.”

 

“Thank you, Peeta,” she whispers.

 

“But, um…” He takes a breath and closes his eyes. He’s a bastard. A weak, selfish bastard. “I should go.”

 

She pulls away from him as though stung. “What? Why?”

 

He stands, wiping his damp hands on his trousers. The TV’s still on in the background, but the sound is just a muddy, hissing white noise. “I just… I don’t know. I just need to…”

 

“Peeta.” She reaches out to him, her hand skimming the fabric of his sleeve. Peeta pulls away before her grip finds purchase. “Peeta, please!”

 

He meets her watery gaze; the pit in his stomach grows. He’s a giant piece of shit, but the urge to leave is more overpowering than anything else. He can’t think, can’t see, can’t breathe around her now.

 

“I’m sorry, Katniss,” he whispers. “I’ll talk to you soon, all right?”

 

“No!” Her firm tone stops him at the door, hand frozen and hovering above the handle.

 

He turns and looks at her, his heart sinking to his knees at the look on her face. His entire body twitches with the urge to step forward to do… something… before it dies altogether at the look in her eyes, dancing between rage and heartbreak.

 

“Peeta.” Her voice breaks, shakes, with anger or something else he can’t guess. “If… if you walk through that door, don’t even bother coming back.”

 

He stares at her, his own eyes starting to sting, his body beginning to tremble. His life has always — always — been so entwined with Katniss’; for twenty years it’s been them, together. Even when she was at college, it never really felt like they were ever apart. What his life could ever be like without her… he guesses he’s about to find out.

 

“You’re already leaving, Katniss.” He shakes his head and twists the doorknob, stepping over the threshold and onto the welcome mat. It mocks him with its stupid, colourful cheeriness, the exact reasons he bought it for her in the first place.

 

“It doesn’t make a difference now.”

 

**XXX**

Peeta stumbles through the door of his apartment, tripping over shoes and other bits of random shit that litter his abode, each step away from Katniss leaving a hollow in his chest deep enough to drown in.

 

He paws through his kitchen cupboards but he can’t find what he wants, if he even knows what he wants. He doesn’t keep any alcohol in his apartment; his early nights and early starts don’t lend themselves too well to a few drinks before bed, and given his childhood and his accident a few years ago, he’s always thought it might be a bit too easy to lose himself in a bottle and not want to come up again. He limits his alcohol intake to weekends, and not even too much then; he doesn’t want to be hung over while doing his housework.

 

But maybe _a few drinks_ are just what he needs right now.

 

He tugs his phone from his jeans pocket and brings up F in his phonebook.

 

It rings once, twice —

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey, Finnick?” he ventures, trying and failing to inject some pep into his tone. He runs his free hand through his hair and tugs at the ends until his scalp stings. “You busy tonight?”

 

“Busy? Nah. Annie’s off visiting her parents, telling them about the baby.”

 

He leans against his marble countertop, crossing his free arm over his stomach. “And you didn’t go with her?”

 

“I can only take so much of her dad trying to stare lasers though me before it gets too much,” he complains. “Besides, what do you think he’s gonna do if I present him with hard, certifiable evidence that I’ve been bare-backing his daughter for the past five years?”

 

Peeta scrunches up his face and closes his eyes, but it’s no use: the image is burned into his brain forever now. “You’re a crass bastard, you know that?”

 

“You knew that coming in. You’ve got no right to be shocked now. So, what do you have in mind?”

 

“Sad ciders.”

 

He hears Finnick give a sharp inhale. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry, man, whatever it is. Abernathy’s in twenty?”

 

Peeta rubs his hands over his eyes and glances at his reflection in the chrome finish of his fridge. God, he looks like shit: his eyes are sunk and hollow, skin pale and clammy. Fatigue washes over him, quick and sudden; going out now seems like the worst idea in the world. All he wants to do is take a hot shower and go to sleep, maybe eat the entire block of asiago cheese he bought the day before to make Katniss her Sunday cheese buns.

 

“Actually…” He runs his hand over his stubbled chin, trying to remember when he last shaved. He’d been going to do it before he left for Katniss’ that afternoon, but decided against it at the last minute when he remembered her fondness for his stubble, how she’d sometimes rub her own cheek against it and laugh when hugging him goodbye. “I think… make it tomorrow. I’m not… I don’t think I’m any good for anyone right now, on second thought.”

 

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Finnick asks, in a rare display of compassion.

 

Peeta laughs, but there’s nothing in it. “Yeah, I’m all right. For now, I think.”

 

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” Finnick promises. “What time do you finish?”

 

“Three.”

 

“I’ll pick you up at four.”

 

“Fuck it.” Peeta lets out a long breath. He drags himself to his bedroom, draws the curtains and flops onto his bed. “I’ll leave early. Meet me at two.”

**XXX**

“I fucked up!” Peeta announces. He’s four drinks in on their third Sad Cider night in as many days, as he and his friends termed the nights where they would drink to the fucked-up unfairness of the world. Previous Sad Cider nights have lamented shitty job interviews, lacklustre grades, bad breakups, broken iPads and expensive car repairs.

 

Drinking to the love of your life leaving you to document fucking _numbats_ or whatever in Australia is a first, though. Maybe that’s why he needed three Sad Cider nights in one fucking week to get past it. Every time he sobered up it hit him all over again, and he craved the warm numbness of alcohol to push it back.

 

Peeta rattled off the long, shitty story multiple times before he realised he’s the villain of the piece. It’s a departure from the norm, but it’s one he’s embracing. He’s never angry; he’s allowed to be now, for once in his life. He’s allowed to give Katniss the cold shoulder, too, because he’s never done that before, either.

 

“She’s not gone yet, tosser,” Finnick tells him, five drinks in. He stares at the empty bowl in the middle of their table, scrunching up his nose between bleary blinks. “Where… where’d all the peanuts go?”

 

“You ate them all, remember? And she might as well be! I haven’t seen her all week, Finn! That’s _never_ happened. I’m always with her.”

 

“I dunno, Peet. Maybe that’s for… you know, the best? All that packing… Sounds like —” he hiccups “— sounds like a big job to me.”

 

“Whose side are you even on?” Peeta grumbles, resting his head on his crossed arms. They’re sitting in a pool of something sticky, but he can’t bring himself to care.

 

“Your side, man. Always. It’s why I… why I decked you that one time.”

 

“You decked me, with my fuckin’ prosthetic leg and all, because you’re _on my side_?”

 

“Sure as fuck not going to encourage your shit. Would’ve shoved you more if Kat and Annie hadn’t ruined it. You proved my point, though: you love being sad.”

 

“Wh-what?”

 

“Well,” Finnick says, considering, “maybe you don’t looooooove it, but you’re okay with it. You’re used to it.”

 

“I don’t… like it.” Peeta scrunches up his face. “But it’s better than the alter…the alt… the other thing.”

 

“What, all your dreams coming true?”

 

“Or they might burn in the fiery pits of hell.” He squints at the table and frowns. “They’ll probably burn in the fiery pits of hell.”

 

“You’re so negative!” Finnick cries as he leans back too far back in his seat. He wobbles and teeters but manages to steady himself on the edge of the table, sending their empties tumbling to the ground. Peeta watches on with his heart in his throat, cringing when they all meet the floor with a clatter loud enough to still the room. He lets out a breath of relief; not one shatters.

 

“You’re at the end of the road, my friend,” Finnick says, paying no mind to the mess around them, and sounding far soberer than he is. Peeta shifts from his stool, woozy from getting up too fast, and gathers the bottles in his arms, handing them off to the nice waitress who’s been serving them all night.

 

“You’re out of chances,” Finnick goes on, sounding far too dramatic for Peeta’s liking. “Like, you’re literally out of chances. She’ll be off and… that’ll be _it_. Poof. All gone.”

 

Peeta sits back in his seat and crosses his arms, lips puckered in a pout. The waitress comes out with new drinks for them both, setting them down with a scowl.

 

“So, if… if you don’t tell’er, I will. Right… right now.” Finnick makes a show of slipping his phone out from his pocket, but it’s not as graceful as he thinks. Peeta laughs with the uninhibited freedom of the rip-roaring pissed as Finnick fumbles, coming within a hairsbreadth of losing his thousand-dollar iPhone on the sticky bar floor.

 

“I don’t… do you know her number?” Finnick asks, finger poised over the screen. “She deleted it from mine when I wouldn’t stop prank-calling her and hasn’t given it back yet, the meanie.”

 

There’s a sober voice — one that sounds an awful lot like Katniss — in his head telling him this is all a terrible idea. Maybe the worst Finnick has ever concocted. But there’s just enough booze wending its way through his system that Peeta can’t bring himself to give a crap. Maybe doing it like this is for the best? He’d never have the balls to do it otherwise.

 

Peeta rattles of the numbers that haven’t changed since Katniss got her first phone when she was fifteen. When she first gave him the number, he stared at the digits for hours, etching them forever upon his brain. They’d been best friends for a decade by then, and he knew her home number and all, but he still had to pinch himself; he had Katniss Everdeen’s phone number!

 

He takes another sip of his drink as Finnick holds his phone to his ear. He mouths, “It’s ringing,” and a sharp spike of nerves crests in him. He’s wrong. This really is the worst idea. He wants to run, but his balance is way off, and there’s a crowd near the door, so…

 

After a moment, Finnick grins. “Kat… Katniss, sweetness, sugar and light, is that you?”

 

Peeta can hear her through the phone, but she sounds too much like an adult in a Peanuts cartoon. She sounds like she’s scowling, though. Peeta likes her scowl. It’s hot.

 

“I’ve got… I’ve got Peeta right here.” Finnick grins and points at him, as though Katniss can see. “He’s such a nice guy, Katniss. Such a niiiiice guy. I don’t… I don’t know _why_ you haven’t tapped that yet.”

 

He hears her laugh. Peeta likes her laugh. It’s hot.

 

“He has something he wants to tell you.” Finnick holds the phone out for him to take, wiggling it back and forth.

 

Peeta snatches it from his hand, yanking it back with him and holds it close like it’s something precious. He presses it to his ear and opens his mouth, then closes it, repeats; what the hell is he meant to say?

 

“K-Katniss?” His voice is dry. He swallows. “Katniss?”

 

“I’m here, Peeta.” She sounds amused. Kind of. It’s a step in the right direction, at least.

 

“I miss you, Katniss. Ssssoooo much already.”

 

“I haven’t gone anywhere yet, Peeta. And it’s only been a week; you’re the one not talking to me, remember?”

 

He groans and pushes the curls flopping down into his eyes back with his hand, damp from the condensation on his bottle. “I know, and I’m sorry. Ssssooo sorry. I’m just… I’m a little drunk right now, is all.”

 

He can almost hear her smile. “I can tell.”

 

“I have something I wanna tell you, but it’s kinda a big deal. I don’t know if you’re gonna like it.”

 

“You can tell me anything, Peeta, remember?”

 

“Yeah, I know, I remember. But still…” He trails off, stares at the orange lights hanging from the dirty ceiling. How does a ceiling even _get_ dirty, anyway?

 

“Peeta? Are you still there?”

 

He snatches up his drink and drains the rest of the bottle in one hit. A wave of dizziness crashes into him, knocking his head back down to the cradle of his arm. “Yeah, I’m here. I just…” He hiccups. “I love you, Katniss. So, so, so much. And not just in a best friend way, either, though that’s pretty nice, too.”

 

He hears her whispered, “What?”, but he plunges on:

 

“I think I might have loved you forever. I can’t really remember, but I know it’s been a real long time. I don’t remember what things were like before I met you, and I don’t wanna remember, Katniss. I don’t want to go back there.”

 

There’s silence on the other end of the line, then a breath and Katniss’ distant voice asking, “What are you saying, Peeta?”

 

He laughs, a loud, raucous thing that has Finnick slapping the table, letting out drunken guffaws of his own. “Love you, Katniss. Love you… so much.”

 

“Peeta,” she whispers.

 

“I gotta go, Kat,” he slurs, eyeing Finnick who’s turned a little red around the edges, still laughing like his problems are the funniest things in the world. Just ‘cause he married Annie fresh out of high school and stuck a ring on her finger as soon as he had the cash. Dickhead. “I’m sorta drunk. Don’t wanna say something stupid.”

 

He can hear her start her reply, but he hangs up before she can finish it. He’s not certain he ever wants to hear it.

 

Instead of the relief he hoped he would feel, anxiousness washes over him. He tips back the rest of Finnick’s drink in a long gulp and signals the server for another one. What the fuck’s he going to do now?

 

“You’re an asshole,” he mutters, all but throwing the phone across the table. Finnick scrambles to catch it before it lands on the unforgiving floor.

 

“You’re the asshole!” Finnick clutches his phone in his lap like it’s his firstborn. He wishes he could snap a photo of him and send it to Annie; whether it reassures her or makes sure Finnick spends the next month sleeping on the couch makes no difference to him. “This phone’s fuckin’ expensive.”

 

Peeta scoffs. “You buy the new one every fuckin’ time they launch, Finn. You’ve got a fuckin’ drawer full of ‘em.”

 

“Still, though,” he grumbles. Finnick downs the last of his drink and sets the bottle down with a loud smack of glass on acrylic. “You feel better?”

 

Peeta snorts. “No. That was… that was so dumb, Finn. I shouldn’t have…”

 

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Finnick slurs. “T’was a great idea. My best yet.” He lurches forward, turning green. “Hey, are ready to get a cab? I think… I think I might be sick or something.”

 

Peeta nods, digging his wallet from his back pocket. He drops a wad of cash on the table and pushes out of his sticky bar stool. Abernathy’s may be an institution in tiny Panem, but it’s by no means a clean one.

 

“Just lemme grab this last one for the road.”

 

“I think… maybe you’ve had enough tonight, Peet?”

 

Peeta shakes his head, pain blooming behind his eyes. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

 

**XXX**

He puts it off for as long as he can, hoping and wishing and praying for a rogue meteor to take out the planet just so his stomach won’t roll with nerves and sick humiliation anymore.

 

But when Katniss calls — two weeks after his disastrous phone confession and subsequent silent distance — asking for help packing her things before she leaves _next fucking week_ , he can’t say no. He never could say no to Katniss Everdeen.

 

Peeta knocks on the door and waits to be let in, dancing back and forth on the sunny, flower-printed welcome mat. He loved the scowl on her face when she’d unwrapped it, and when he saw it at her doorstep the next time he visited, he laughed and felt something warm and pleased fill his chest.

 

He doesn’t wait long. Katniss pulls the door open seconds later, dressed in an old button-down shirt of his and a pair of faded leggings. She stares at him for a long moment before she stands off to the side and waves him through.

 

“You know you can just come in, right?” she says. The line is just about part of the script of their interactions by now.

 

“I know.” He steps through the door, pausing to look around the room made cramped and tiny by the mountains of boxes lining the walls.

 

He reads the labels on them: kitchen; bathroom; bedroom; books. “So, it’s really happening, isn’t it?”

 

“Seems that way,” she says, closing the door after him. The click it makes when it settles back into the lock sounds like a bang, deafening in the cool, tense quiet.

 

Peeta clears his throat. “What are you going to do with everything?”

 

She shrugs. “Storage, I guess. Not like I can bring it all with me. Prim’s going to take the couch and a couple of other things for her dorm room. You know she starts college in a few weeks?”

 

He smiles to himself; Katniss hasn’t talked of much else since Prim got her acceptance letters. When he’s given her the chance to talk to him, that is. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

 

“Insane.”

 

Silence falls between them. They’ve never had an awkward silence together their whole lives, and neither of them knows what to do with it. Peeta shuffles back and forth on his feet; Katniss uncrosses and recrosses her arms so many times he loses count.

 

He coughs; she jolts. “What about the apartment?”

 

“The lease doesn’t run out for another six months or so.” She leans back against the door frame, crossing her arms again as she surveys the room. “I’ll be subletting then letting the place go.”

 

“Right. Got someone lined up?”

 

“No. The owner will deal with it.”

 

“Right,” he says again. He shuffles from side to side in the small space, jamming his hands into his shallow pockets. “So, what do you want me to do?”

 

She arches a brow at him. “Peeta, look around you: it’s practically done. Do you really think I asked you here to help me pack?”

 

Katniss pushes off the doorway and sits herself down on to the sofa. She pats the spot beside her. “Sit with me.”

 

He must stare at her a beat too long, because she smiles and tacks on, “Please.”

 

The swirling in his stomach reaches a fever pitch. Sweat beads at his hairline, and he thinks he might even see spots starting to cloud his vision. Before he can fall over in the dead faint his body is demanding, he moves over to the sofa and lands there, right beside her, holding himself straight and stiff.

 

She’s quiet for a long time. Too long, by his count. The nerves in his stomach are rising, swirling through his blood, heating him up from the inside out until he’s sure his skin must be steaming.

 

“Is it true?” she asks at last, the low lilt of her voice soft and tense all at once. He doesn’t have to ask what she’s talking about; their last conversation hangs like a low, heavy cloud between them.

 

Peeta closes his eyes. “Yes.”

 

“How much of it?”

 

He sighs and prays for the world to swallow him whole. “Every drunken word.”

 

He feels her shift and squirm in her seat. Fuck. Now he’s made her uncomfortable.

 

“Why?”

 

“Why?” He barks out a dry laugh. “Because you’re incredible, Katniss. You’re kind, amazing, smart, generous —”

 

“No, Peeta.” She chuckles, an edgy, shaky sound. “I mean, why did you tell me like that?”

 

He sighs and rubs at his dry, itching eyes. He’s lost so much sleep these past few weeks, each day drawing him closer to the day Katniss leaves. He’d been too bereft to manage anything but going to the bakery and thanking his lucky stars that his body can work on autopilot. “I was drunk, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to tell you otherwise. But I hate that I was drunk, Katniss. You deserve so much more than a stupid, drunk confession I’d basically been forced into making.”

 

“Well,” she starts, quiet and soft, so much so he can’t be sure he heard her at all. “Then say it again.”

 

He can’t have heard her right. “What?”

 

She implores him with her eyes, her face, her lips, her everything. “Say it again, Peeta, please. I need to hear it, from you. While you’re sober and know what’s going on around you, without Finnick whispering in your ear.”

 

He opens his mouth, closes it again, a hundred false starts but none of them hesitant; he’s already said the words once. What’s one more?

 

“I love you, Katniss. From the moment I first saw you, whether I knew what I was feeling or not.” He leans back and stares at the ceiling, the paint cracked and peeling. “I remember it so clearly, Katniss. You were clutching your dad’s hand, hair in two braids, wearing a red plaid dress just that little bit too long for you. When you jumped up and sang that stupid song about the valley…” He chokes on his words. “God, Katniss, I haven’t been the same since. I can’t remember a time where I didn’t love you. I can’t imagine a time or a place or anything else where I don’t love you.”

 

Her silvery eyes are wide, bright and gleaming and tear-filled, but not upset. “You remember that day?”

 

“What, do I remember the first time I saw you?” He laughs at the absurdity, at the notion that he wouldn’t remember one of the most pivotal moments of his life. “Of course I do.”

 

“You…” She trails off, that beautiful look of wonder blurring her features. “You have a remarkable memory.”

 

“I remember everything about you, Katniss. You’re the one that hasn’t been paying attention.”

 

She gives him an odd look he has no idea how to decipher and draws in a long, deep breath. “I remember the little blond-haired boy with the round cheeks and the wide smile. He sat with me at lunch and shared his cheese buns, and gave me the prettiest drawing of a dandelion.”

 

Katniss darts across the room to an open box sitting on top of a stack five-high. From the top, she takes out a picture frame, stares at it, thrusts it into his hands: the dandelion he gave her all those years ago stares at him from behind the glass. The lines and the colours are a little faded, but it’s all still there, looked after so well it takes his breath away.

 

“I never forgot that little boy, either.” She takes a deep, watery breath and chokes out a laugh. “He became my very best friend, the person I talk to about everything, the only one I want to go to when something good happens, the only one I want holding me when something bad happens. Along the way, he became something… more. He became my other half and I can’t, not even for a second, imagine my life without him.” A tear falls down her cheek, and he itches with the urge to wipe it away for her, but her words have him stunned, rooted in place. “I love you, too, Peeta. I think I’ve… always.”

 

His gaze darts to hers, so fast his neck cracks, splinters with the rest of him. His heart pounds in his chest, something in him soaring with the sort of hope he never believed he could ever experience. “Are you… really, Katniss? I can’t… I couldn’t take it if you —”

 

She swings herself into his lap, straddling his thighs, hands flying up to cradle his face. His hands go to her waist, warm from the inferno of her body.

 

She stares into his eyes, like she can see right through him; he has never doubted that she can. “I love you, Peeta Mellark.”

 

A loud peal of joyous laughter spills forth from him without thought. Pure, unfettered joy trickles through every part of him, filling him with a warmth, a comfort, a bone-deep sense of peace and contentment he’s never known.

 

“And I love you, Katniss Everdeen.”

 

She sighs and leans in, resting her forehead against his. He closes his eyes and breaths her in. He’s got no words left for this moment.

 

“Peeta?” she whispers after a long, immeasurable moment, her thumbs stroking along his cheeks.

 

“Yeah?” He’s dazed, loopy, never better. Even his smile feels lazy.

 

She leans in, brushing her nose against his. “Kiss me.”

 

So he does.

 

And it’s sheer relief, stark and palpable enough to make him weep.             

 

His arms shoot out and wrap around her waist, slipping under her shirt and spanning up her back and down to the curve of her ass, holding her close but not close enough; he doubts even her body flush against his will ever be close enough. He pulls the tie from her braid and runs his fingers through her hair until her glossy black tresses fall around them like a curtain. Her arms lift around his neck and tug him to her level, deepening the kiss to reach far enough within him to steal his very soul.

 

He pulls away first — _idiot_ — panting. “Is this… is this real?” He has to ask, because _fuck_ , this is unbelievable.

 

She kisses him again. And again and again and again. Forehead, nose, eyes and lips. “It’s real, Peeta,” she whispers against his ear, her voice hoarse. “It’s so, so real.”

 

She’s on him again, hands all over his chest and everywhere at once. He comes alive under her touch, blood thrumming through him like a freight train.

 

He nips her lip and wrests away control as she gasps. He licks into her mouth, every crack and dip and crevice his to map, to conquer. She tastes like honey from her tea, fire and ash. She moans into him, a soft, hungry sound that shoots straight down to his cock.

 

His trembling fingers skirt around the hem of her shirt. “Katniss, may I —”

 

“Yes.” She lifts her arms above her head for him to drag the shirt off her body, fingers and lips skimming every new piece of skin revealed. His hands reach up and settle on the front clasp of her bra, a soft, plain, cotton thing in faded grey. No lace, so frills, no satin. Not even one of those silly bows they insist on putting right in the centre. Simple, pure. Perfect. He looks up at her in askance, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth as she nods. He twists the clasp and lets it fall open on its own, before she shrugs it off and tosses it away.

 

He draws in a breath and gasps on it; Katniss Everdeen takes his breath away.

 

He presses a shaky kiss to her chest, just over the thud of her heart. She flushes from head to toe and draws in a shuddering breath.

 

“You are incredible, Katniss.” He kisses her again with reverence. “Absolutely stunning. Absolutely beautiful.”

 

For a fraction of a second her face scrunches up. “You don’t have to —”

 

“— What, lie?” He slips down lower, dragging lips and tongue and teeth over the taut tips of her breasts. He draws a nipple into his mouth and suckles tenderly, keeping his eyes on hers, watching the black of her pupils blow wide over the grey. “I would never, ever lie to you, Katniss. Not about this.”

 

He kisses up the modest swells of her breasts, over her chest, through the tendons of her straining neck, on top of the thump of her pulse, across the sharp angle of her chin and back to her lips.

 

“I think,” Katniss manages between kisses, “that you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage.”

 

“Really?” He licks up over the roof of her mouth, traps her bottom lip between his and nibbles on it. He wants to laugh and cry all at once. “How so?”

 

She tugs at his shirt with far less delicacy than he handled hers. He disconnects the kiss and pulls back enough to leave the bare minimum of room needed for her to pull his shirt over his head. He has no care whatsoever where the stupid fabric lands.

 

She falls forward, her face landing in the crook of his neck, molten skin on skin. He can feel her heart pounding against his, matching the crazed rhythm of his, goose-bumps raising where her nipples drag along his chest. Peeta groans at the sensation, wanting more.

 

He turns his head and presses a kiss to her temple before wrapping her in his arms and flipping them over, so he sits astride her, the firm press of his cock straining to meet her warmth through his layers of denim and cotton.

 

“Please, Peeta,” she entreaties him with a tiny thrust up. He leans forward to brush his lips against hers. Now that he’s done it once, he wants it always.

 

“Please what?” he murmurs, plucking yet another kiss from her lips. His hands roam her body, mapping the dip of her waist, the curve of her hips, the rise of her breasts in a frenzy; he doesn’t know where to land.

 

Her hands skim the length of his chest and lower, dancing along the waistband of his jeans. He swallows and stills her hands with his.

 

“Are you sure, Katniss?” he asks her. There’s still so much else he wants to do: he wants to feel her, taste her, devour her. A fantasy he knows will have to be sated another time by the very look on her face.

 

Her eyes are wide, glazed, lips parted as she nods. “Yes, Peeta,” she says on a sigh. “I'm clean, I'm on the pill, and I'm sure. More sure than ever.”

 

He keeps his gaze on her as he releases her hands and lets them go about their business. In the space between blinks the button’s undone, the zip is pulled down, and Katniss’ small hand is under the waistband of his boxers, sliding along the length of his cock in a sweet, steady rhythm.

 

“Fuck, Katniss!” He almost chokes. He might as well be a fifteen-year-old virgin with his first girlfriend for all he’s going to be able to last.

 

Before he embarrasses himself, he stands and shucks his jeans, watching Katniss peel out of her leggings. Her hands move to undo the clips of his prosthetic but he beats her to it, yanking at the clasps with an impatience he never knew he possessed. As soon as he’s done he pushes her back down and settles over her, lips on hers, his cock nestled in her folds.

 

He holds her hands above her head, twining their fingers together. He leans in for another kiss, and another and another and another. How he ever went so long not knowing the feel of her pillowy lips on his, the sweet taste of her on his tongue, the heat and thrum of her skin on his skin, he has no idea. He can’t go back. Won’t go back.

 

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he whispers again as guides himself inside her.

 

She returns the affirmations with every thrust, in every gaze, every kiss, every graze of her nails down his back. When they reach their highs within heartbeats of each other, Peeta swears he’s never felt more whole in his life.

 

**XXX**

 

“Why don’t you sing anymore?” he asks her, the afterglow making him warm and languid. He doesn’t think he could even move if he wanted to. He’s not sure he ever wants to again.

 

“What?” she mumbles against his chest. He grins and kisses the top of her head. The freedom to kiss her now is the most incredible feeling, one he needs to take advantage of always.

 

“I never heard you sing again after that first time, except for a couple of times I overheard you in the shower on accident.”

 

He feels her smile. “That why you’d insist on waiting for me in the hallway?”

 

“That and I wanted to cop an eyeful.” He wiggles his eyebrows and laughs as she bats his chest with half-hearted slaps. “Better than waiting in your bedroom, I think.”

 

“I can’t believe my parents would even let you out of the lounge room while I was showering.”

 

“Hey!” he protests, laughing. “I am the very picture of innocence!”

 

She chuckles and buries her face against his chest. “You really are.”

 

He nudges her again, scoring his fingers up and down the length of her bare back, grinning to himself as her hot skin pebbles beneath his touch. “Anyway, singing? I thought you loved it. And damn, Katniss, you sound like an angel.”

 

She sighs and turns her head just so, so she’s facing him again. His heart hurts at how beautiful she looks right now, with her hair a mess, her lips pillowed and swollen, her eyes bright and low at the same time. He reaches out and pulls her closer, forehead to forehead, chest to chest.

 

“I do love it,” she tells him. “I always have. It’s just not something I like to show off anymore, you know? I was something I used to do a lot with my dad, but after he passed, there didn’t seem to be much of a reason to sing anymore.”

 

He squeezes her hand. The slow steadiness of their breathing, rising and falling in perfect sync, fills the room with a quiet sort of calm.

 

Peeta sighs, loathe to be the one to break it. “Are we going to talk about any of this?” he asks.

 

“What’s to talk about?” Katniss yawns. “It would have happened anyway.”

 

“While your vote of confidence is appreciated…” His fingers dance down to the swell of her ass. “I was talking more about the reason I’ve been an immature asshole and not talking to you in the first place.”

 

“What? The job?” She sighs. “There isn’t much to talk about, Peeta. I’ve already accepted it. I’ve packed up my apartment. My flights and accommodations are all confirmed. I’ve already started adjusting my sleeping patterns so I’m not a mess when I get there —”

 

He hushes her with another drowsy kiss. “All true, yes. But I wanted to submit something else for your consideration.”

 

“Oh? And what’s that?”

 

“Let me come with you.”

 

She flicks her head in his direction so fast he hears it crack. It’s comical, almost, the shock on her face paired with the glowing flush and sleepiness from her earlier orgasms.

 

“What did you just say?”

 

He smiles and takes her hand, lifting it to kiss each knuckle in turn. “Let me come with you, Katniss. It’s too far away, and I can’t…”

 

Katniss sighs and traces random patterns over his chest with her free hand. If he focusses, they aren’t so random; KE and PM, over and over again. Every so often they bleed together, just KM. He grins; he’s never known her to be so sentimental. “Peeta, you were a stubborn ass and left the other week before I could tell you, but this job… it isn’t a permanent position.”

 

He sits up so fast his head spins, knocking Katniss from his chest with a whine. “It’s not?”

 

She shakes her head. “I never would have accepted it if it was.”

 

Peeta furrows his brows. He’s doing to have a deep-ass wrinkle there before long. “Then how long is it for?”

 

Katniss shrugs and yawns again. “A year, maybe a year and a half. All depends on what happens when I get there, I guess.”

 

“Oh. Well, can I still come with you?”

 

She eyes him with caution, like she thinks he’s going to change his mind as soon as her back is turned. “Do you really want to? You wouldn’t want to wait? We’ll still be the same people when I get back, won’t we?”

 

Peeta sighs and pulls her close again. “Of course we will, Katniss. But I don’t want us to go from… this, to not seeing each other for a year or longer. Do you?”

 

She scoffs. “Of course not! But, Peeta, this isn’t, like, moving to the next town, or even the next state over. It’s moving halfway across the world! Besides, what about your dad? Your brothers?”

 

“They’d understand, Katniss. Hell, they’d probably cheer.”

 

Katniss sighs and tips her forehead low against his chest. “What would you even do there?”

 

“I’ll find something. If not, I’ll just protect you from all the snakes and spiders.”

 

“Peeta, you don’t even like to kill cockroaches.”

 

“Cockroaches aren’t out to kill me and the people I love.”

 

She laughs again. He doesn’t think he could ever hear enough of the sound. “Hardly anyone dies from snake and spider bites in Australia anymore. It’s not the wild death pit people think it is. I did mention this job will only be for a year, right?”

 

He circles a finger around her belly button, grinning as she squirms. “See? It’s not forever. We can come back at the end.”

 

She quirks a brow at him. “And if I decide I like it there?”

 

“Then we stay. My home is with you, Katniss. I don’t care where that is.”

 

“You realise rural Victoria is nothing like Panem, right?” she warns him, but he can tell she’s beginning to relent, maybe even a whisper of excitement starting to enter her tone. “And I start during their summer? It’s going to be hot.”

 

He shrugs as best trapped on his side. “I never liked winter that much to begin with.”

 

“It could be dangerous.”

 

“You’re the one who said it’s not a wild death pit. I’m sure I can take care of myself, fake leg and all.”

 

“And you know I’m going to be working most of the time, right? This isn’t a sight-seeing, tourist-y thing I’m doing.”

 

He tries not to sound too frustrated when he asks, “Is there a reason you’re so determined to talk me out of this? I told you, Katniss, I love you. Where you go, I go, for as long as you’ll allow it.”

 

She sighs, but she’s smiling. “Peeta, really, what would you do?’

 

“You act like Australians don’t eat bread. I’m sure I’ll find work somewhere.”

  
She gazes at him, her expression softening. “You would really move around the world for me?”

 

He sighs. “Katniss. There is nothing on this earth that I wouldn’t do for you.”

 

She’s silent for a long moment; Peeta can almost hear the cogs turning in her brain, scrying over each little individual pocket of information for a snag.

 

She’s silent for so long he thinks he might have imagined her whispered, “All right.”

 

He tenses, holding her tight. “All right?” Urgency races through him. “Katniss, did you say —”

 

She cuts him off with a laugh, a wild, easy, carefree sound; one of the best sounds in the world. “Yes, Peeta. Come with me.”

 

He lets out a whoop far louder than he intends, but the neighbours are just going to have to suck it up for a little bit longer. He swoops in and kisses her again, soft and grateful and so, so happy. The kiss peters out into countless tiny ones, one after the other, as though even the split second apart is too much.

 

“Is this real?” he asks her, again, because he’s not sure he could be convinced he isn’t dreaming. This night has been the stuff of absolute wonder, a thousand and one of all his dreams come true at once.

 

He feels her laugh against his neck, peppering kisses here and there until he’s breathless. “This is real, Peeta. Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, that was a ride! I'm ally147writes on Tumblr if anyone wants to chat!


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